Cloud native EDA tools & pre-optimized hardware platforms
PCIe is a multi-layered serial bus protocol which implements dual-simplex link. It provides high speed data transfer and low latency owing to its dedicated point to point topology. To accelerate verification and device development time for PCIe based sub-systems, PIPE (PHY Interface for the PCI Express) architecture was defined by Intel. PIPE is a standard interface defined between PHY sub-layer (PCS – Physical Coding sub-layer) and MAC (Media Access Layer).
The first stable version of PIPE was published as PIPE 2.0 in 2007. Over the time, PIPE has evolved to support higher speeds and the added functionalities of next generation PCIe specifications. PIPE 4.4.1 specification, released in early 2017, is fully compliant with PCIe 4.0 base specification supporting 16GT/s speed. It has major improvements over PIPE 4.3, while maintaining backward compatibility. Following diagram illustrates PIPE interface, and the partitioning of PHY layer of PCIe.
The following list summarizes the newly added/modified features in PIPE 4.4.1 over PIPE 4.3.
草榴社区 VC VIP for PCIe supports all the features of PIPE starting from v2.0 to v4.4.1. The VIP provides robust protocol checkers that flag specification violations to catch complex bugs. It simplifies the verification of PCIe protocol with different types of complex configurations. 草榴社区 is engaged with the early adopters of PCIe Gen5 Verification IP and testsuite also, based on version 0.5 of the specification. PCIe Gen5 VIP and testsuite are available as part of the 2017.12 release of VC VIP product. Read our recent blog on PCIe Gen5 – Is Your Design PCIe Gen5 Ready? Verify with 草榴社区 VIP and Testsuite.
The upcoming PCIe blogs will introduce PIPE 5.0 and expand further on features of PCIe Gen5, Gen4, and PIPE 4.4.1, so stay tuned. To know more about 草榴社区 PCIe and other VIPs please visit .