Mentor Graphics Delivers Simulation and Emulation Solutions to Verify Serial Attached SCSI Products
Mentor
Graphics Corp. (NASDAQ: MENT), a leader in advanced system
verification solutions, today announced hardware and software solutions
to accelerate the verification of Serial Attached SCSI (SAS)
second-generation (Gen2) products, having speeds up to 6Gbps. Using the
Mentor® verification solutions, designers can test their SAS Gen2
devices integrated on their System-on-Chip (SoC) designs, and develop
and test their software drivers and applications prior to silicon being
available.
The first new product is iSolveTM
SAS, which has a ‘plug-and-play’ hardware interface to the Veloce®
family of hardware
emulators. It provides a cost-effective and efficient solution to
verify new SAS Gen2 target devices with their software drivers in a SoC
design. Additionally, an emulated SoC containing a SAS initiator device,
such as Host Bus Adapter, can be connected via the iSolve SAS solution
to a full-speed SAS disk drive for testing with real target hardware.
The Gen2 solution is also fully compatible with older Gen1 speed
devices. This new hardware product adds to the existing iSolve family of
solutions for the accelerated verification of applications such as
storage, networking, embedded systems, wireless, and multimedia devices.
Complementing the iSolve solution is the SAS transaction-based
verification IP (VIP) solution. This delivers both a simulation
environment, using the Questa®
verification platform, and accelerated simulation environment using the
Veloce hardware for the verification of SAS Gen2-compliant devices. It
generates the appropriate stimuli for the Design-Under-Test (DUT),
passing packets, or transactions, of protocol data for tests. The VIP
solution also provides a high-level Application Programming Interface
(API) to allow use with multiple test-bench environments, such as
SystemVerilog and SystemC, and provides example test environments that
can exercise the emulated SAS Gen2 device. The Gen2 SAS VIP is also
fully compatible with Gen1 speed devices.
Increased bandwidth and performance requirements of enterprise systems,
especially those involving video streaming or high levels of
transactional-data, such as reservation or billing systems, have meant
that SAS has become an industry standard in the storage application
space. Additionally, its backward compatibility with SCSI, and
interoperability with Serial ATA (SATA), delivers flexibility and cost
savings to enterprises previously not available using their traditional
storage environments.
“The growth in SAS products has been increasing rapidly, and is
especially important to those in sectors where large data-intensive
storage is mandatory for the operation of applications,” said Eric
Selosse, vice president and general manager, Mentor Emulation Division.
“The challenges faced by the creators of such systems are complex, and
require high-performance verification solutions to detect flaws early in
the development cycle and to reduce risks. To solve these challenges, we
created both hardware and software solutions for the verification of SAS
Gen2 products. These products provide flexibility and
ease-of-use, including the configurable test models that our customers
require for pre- and post-silicon testing.”
The new SAS products deliver use modes with traditional in-circuit
emulation (ICE) and high-performance, transaction-based simulation or
acceleration. When combined with Questa and Veloce2, the
latest-generation emulator from Mentor, the SAS products deliver
high-performance and easy-to-use system verification for developing SoCs
containing SAS Gen2 devices, without compromising delivery schedules.
The Veloce2 emulator is a high-performance, dual-mode
accelerator/emulator, delivering twice the performance and capacity of
previous generations for both transaction-based verification and
traditional in-circuit emulation (ICE). With an extensive portfolio of
vertical market solutions, the Veloce2 emulator is the platform of
choice for networking, wireless, multimedia, storage, and embedded
systems applications.
Pricing and Availability
Both solutions are available for deployment at customer sites effective
immediately. For product information on the Mentor SAS Gen2 solutions,
contact your Mentor Graphics sales representative, call 800-547-3000 or
visit the website at www.mentor.com/med.
About Mentor Graphics
Mentor Graphics Corporation is a world leader in electronic hardware and
software design solutions, providing products, consulting services and
award-winning support for the world’s most successful electronic,
semiconductor and systems companies. Established in 1981, the company
reported revenues in the last fiscal year of about $1,090 million.
Corporate headquarters are located at 8005 S.W. Boeckman Road,
Wilsonville, Oregon 97070-7777. World Wide Web site: http://www.mentor.com/.
(Mentor Graphics, Mentor, Veloce and Questa are registered trademarks
and iSolve is a trademark of Mentor Graphics Corporation. All other
company or product names are the registered trademarks or trademarks of
their respective owner.)
