CircuiTree - April 2009 - (Page 18)

New GUI Improves Time to Market for Serial RapidIO System Designs design time by more than three months. A Serial RapidIO device wizard provides designers with a graphical interpretation of what is happening on the board’s Serial RapidIO devices, which is easier to read than lines of code and register values. This interface helps designers quickly and easily obtain the status of these devices and diagnose problems on the board. By using the new GUI, users can intuitively program all Serial RapidIO devices on a board, including all switches, pre-processing switches, and endpoints, speeding development time by reducing time spent poring over speciﬁcations, data sheets, and user manuals. The GUI allows developers to ﬁne tune their system performance for optimal throughput and best-possible signal integrity. A Serial RapidIO device wizard includes several features to help board designers evaluate the performance of the board, such as helping conﬁgure switch routes, and controlling and monitoring all status and control registers on the Serial RapidIO chips. It provides visibility not only into the devices, but also the link status for Serial RapidIO connections to any vendors’ devices. It also monitors port status and helps with port conﬁguration by adjusting transmitter settings. The wizard incorporates performance monitors, including packet counters for packets received, packets sent, and packets-not-accepted, and displays a performance graph with performance history. It also contains error diagnostics, which identify error events in plain English (meaning no cryptic codes), allows ﬁltering and isolating of error sources, provides single error event ﬁlters and triggers for capturing spurious events, and includes an error event log for long-duration functional and BER testing. The script tool also allows the user to create a script ﬁle and execute the script, and it can also save the current device settings. When the system is next powered up, it can program all connected devices with a single click instead of reprogramming all of the settings individually each time the system is re-powered. Evaluation The GUI tool helps shorten product development cycles — from device evaluation and board bringup to production and performance optimization. It can help to speed up evaluation time, easily saving up to six weeks on this process. This is achieved by providing an intui- Fig 1 Typical Board Development Timeline It takes roughly 40 weeks to develop a typical board. However, when using a Serial RapidIO device wizard, the process can be shortened to 26 weeks. Fig 3 Serial RapidIO Device Wizard Register List and Quad Register Window The GUI can simultaneously run multiple tests and diagnostics to monitor the status and performance of multiple Serial RapidIO devices on the board. Fig 2 Serial RapidIO Device Wizard, First Screen From the main GUI window, all of the Serial RapidIO devices may be controlled. The scripting interface appears on the left. The remainder of the window is work space for all of the individual device control windows. 18 April 2009 • circuitree.com Fig 4 Serial RapidIO Device Wizard Routing Table A Serial RapidIO device wizard routing table is a route look-up table for each port on the board. When a packet comes in, the routing table specifies to which output port the packet goes. http://www.circuitree.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CircuiTree - April 2009

CircuiTree - April 2009 Contents Lead Wire The Wire Tech Talk Flexible Thinking New GUI Improves Time to Market for Serial RapidIO System Designs Environmentally Speaking Intelligent Design i-Line UV Lithography and Sub-10μm Feature Size Package Substrate Technologies Guest Column BPA Growth Curves Market Outlook Technical Product Spotlights Classified Ads Upcoming Events Ad Index

CircuiTree - April 2009

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