Icera chooses TVS to perform independent verification

July 1st, 2010 -- Icera, a fabless semiconductor company that develops chipsets for high-performance mobile broadband applications, has chosen UK company TVS to perform independent verification of its digital card (SDCard) interface for its new chip.

TVS’s expertise in SDCard interface protocol, open verification methodology (OVM) and verification IP development meant the company was able to deliver verification IP that its customer could own long-term and reuse for future chip designs.

Icera’s own verification staff were already fully employed on verifying the company’s new chip and Icera wanted independent verification of the SDCard interface protocol implementation on that design IP.

“We had several requirements,” says Simon Knowles, vice-president for strategy and DXP technology at Icera. “We use open verification methodology (OVM), so needed the verification IP to be OVM-compliant. We also wanted to own the verification IP long-term so we could reuse it for future chips and we did not want any license restrictions on how many simulations we could run in parallel. TVS delivered all this and more.”

TVS had the knowledge of the protocol, OVM and verification IP development. The company also had staff that were able to go onsite to install the initial releases and support Icera initially, and then to be on hand if further support was needed.

“TVS provided the OVM-compliant verification IP on schedule and to budget, and were flexible enough to incorporate some change requests without any price increase,” says Knowles. “The verification IP enabled Icera to verify the SDCard interface and helped Icera to develop software drivers in advance of their tape-out.”

About TVS

TVS (Bristol, UK) delivers an independent testing service that not only reduces costs and time-to-market, but also improves product quality. TVS combines skills and experience in software testing, hardware verification and outsourcing to provide customers with an efficient, well-managed, quality assurance service. The company provides both consultancy and execution services using experienced engineering resources in several locations around the world. www.tandvsolns.co.uk

About Icera

Icera is a fabless semiconductor company, pioneering soft modem chipsets for the fast growing mobile broadband device market. Icera technology delivers the highest performance modem solutions with the smallest silicon die size for USB sticks, laptops, netbooks and smartphones. Founded in 2002, Icera has design locations in the UK, France, North America and China and customer engineering and sales offices across Asia, Europe and the USA. The company has raised $250M venture funding and is backed by leading European and US VC companies. www.icerasemi.com

Icera, has been acquired by NVIDIA Corporation according to the Press Release by NVIDIA dated 13th June 2011.