Cadence Enables Validation and Verification of PCIe 3.0 Designs with New SpeedBridge Adapter

SAN JOSE, Calif., 29 Jul 2013-- Providing designers with an important tool to validate and verify their PCI Express (PCIe) designs, Cadence Design Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CDNS) today announced a new SpeedBridge® Adapter for PCIe 3.0. This new adapter provides easy bring-up and fast debug of PCIe-based designs when used with a Cadence® Palladium® Verification Computing Platform, and is backwards compatible with PCIe 2.0-, 1.1- and 1.0a-based designs. The SpeedBridge Adapter for PCIe 3.0 reduces time to market and system risk for complex designs by providing high-speed interaction with real-world traffic in a pre-silicon environment running production-level software drivers and an OS.

The SpeedBridge Adapter is designed for pre-silicon RTL and integration of PCIe-based ASICs and systems-on-chip (SoCs) and allows system emulation under real-world operating conditions. The adapter verifies emulated PCIe 3.0 designs with the actual ASIC or SoC software and hardware, driver and application development, and runs with existing software and software test programs or analyzer.

“Increasingly, designers are faced with a difficult balancing act of managing increasing design complexities and shrinking time-to-market windows,” said Christopher Tice, corporate vice president, Hardware System Verification, System and Software Realization Group at Cadence. “PCIe 3.0 has increased complexity levels including higher data transfer rates (8 gigatransfers per second), backwards compatibility requirements, and different standards for equalization. In order to prevent costly re-spins and time-to-market delays, it is imperative for designers to perform complete system verification under complex real-world conditions with high fidelity full-speed interfaces.”

The Cadence SpeedBridge Adapter for PCIe 3.0 is currently shipping. For more information, click here.

About Cadence

Cadence enables global electronic design innovation and plays an essential role in the creation of today’s integrated circuits and electronics. Customers use Cadence software, hardware, IP, and services to design and verify advanced semiconductors, consumer electronics, networking and telecommunications equipment, and computer systems. The company is headquartered in San Jose, Calif., with sales offices, design centers, and research facilities around the world to serve the global electronics industry. More information about the company, its products, and services is available here.