Mentor Graphics Announces New iSolve High Performance Verification Speed Adapters for USB and PCI Express Protocols

WILSONVILLE, Ore., Nov. 16, 2004 – Mentor Graphics Corp. (Nasdaq: MENT) today announced the availability of two new iSolve? speed adapters from its family of emulation products supporting the Universal Serial Bus (USB) and PCI Express industry standard protocols. The Mentor Graphics? iSolve speed adapters boost productivity of a system-on-chip (SoC) or application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) design by connecting it from a Mentor Graphics emulator to a full-speed PCI Express or USB bus for in-circuit system-level verification. These protocols are used for developing today’s consumer electronics, such as set-top boxes, personal computers, and peripheral devices.

The iSolve USB and PCI Express speed adapters provide a rapid path to system verification by creating an environment that combines real USB or PCI Express hardware and applications software, together with the SoC or ASIC design in a hardware emulator. As a result, corner-case bugs in hardware and software can be identified and fixed. Design teams can then address important interoperability and compliance issues that occur with new and evolving bus protocols. The iSolve solutions give designers the confidence in running billions of real world cycles on their SoC design before tape-out, meeting customer delivery schedules and financial returns.

Critical for Verifying Emerging Standard Applications
Unlike other solutions, the iSolve speed adapters allow “real-world” application stimulus for accurate functionality testing since the customer’s design can directly plug into a PCI Express or USB bus.

“The iSolve PCI Express speed adapter detected several early bugs in our designs” according to Takumi Takeno, project manager at Fujitsu, in charge of large-scale server systems. “We find this solution to be critical for our success since we are able to verify the design before silicon, ensuring system interoperability and compliance for the PCI Express standard.”

“Customers verifying USB or PCI Express protocols will realize increased productivity gains,” said Eric Selosse, vice president and general manager, Mentor Emulation Division. “The iSolve solutions provide a clear competitive advantage to our customers by allowing them to deliver products that meet today’s rigorous compliance requirements and time-to-market schedules.”

System Verification for USB Applications
The iSolve USB solution is for emulation users who need to validate complex designs that require a USB 2.0 or 1.1 device port. The USB speed adapter transparently manages communications between the Mentor Graphics VStation? or Celaro? hardware emulator and a USB 2.0 host port. Key features include:

  • Speed adaption between a High-speed (480Mbps) or Full-speed (12Mbps) USB serial bus and the emulator parallel UTMI bus
  • Easy integration of third-party testers to fully validate USB compliance of the design under test (DUT)
  • Enables verification of embedded software using industry-standard debuggers

Catalyst Enterprises supplied Mentor Graphics with its SBAE-30 USB Analyzer/ Exerciser System for use in the development of the iSolve USB speed adapter.

“Our SBAE-30 product is highly complementary to Mentor’s iSolve USB speed adapter,” said Chuck Trefts, Catalyst product manager, Mentor Graphics. “The unit, capable of operating at slow speed, can be used to analyze the USB traffic on either side of the iSolve USB speed adapter and the exerciser functionality can be used to provide specific, directed protocol tests to the design-under-test as an alternative to connecting a PC host, at standard speeds or emulation speeds.”

System Verification for PCI-Express Applications
Based on Mentor Graphics Inventra? PCI Express intellectual property (IP), this solution consists of a two-port PCI Express switch with two endpoint cores. Users can apply either a “forward” or “reverse” speed adapter to verify an endpoint, or a root complex design, respectively. Key features include:

  • Direct PCI Express to PCI Express speed adapter compliant to the 1.0a standard
  • Supports all PCI Express device types: endpoint, root complex, switch, bridge

iSolve USB and iSolve PCI Express are additions to the Mentor Emulation Division’s family of Verification Solutions. They are complementary to the successful IP Target Solutions which provide ARM, TI DSP and PowerPC processors and DSPs for connection to the emulator. For product pricing and additional product information, contact a Mentor Graphics sales representative of visit the website at www.mentor.com

About Mentor Graphics
Mentor Graphics Corporation (Nasdaq: MENT) 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 electronics and semiconductor companies. Established in 1981, the company reported revenues over the last 12 months of about $675 million and employs approximately 3,800 people worldwide. Corporate headquarters are located at 8005 S.W. Boeckman Road, Wilsonville, Oregon 97070-7777; Silicon Valley headquarters are located at 1001 Ridder Park Drive, San Jose, California 95131-2314. World Wide Web site: www.mentor.com.

Mentor Graphics is a registered trademark and iSolve, VStation, Celaro and Inventra are trademarks of Mentor Graphics Corporation. All other company and/or product names are the trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

# # #
 
 
© Mentor Graphics Corp. All rights reserved.