FS2 Introduces SB Navigator Trace Tools For Sonics SiliconBackplane SMART Interconnect; Bus fabric-level debug for Complex SoC development.

PORTLAND, Ore. -- First Silicon Solutions (FS2(R)) announces today the availability of the FS2 SB Navigator(TM), a comprehensive trace and debug solution supporting Sonics(R) SiliconBackplane(TM) SMART Interconnects(TM). SB Navigator is a component of the Bus Navigator suite of FS2 products for system-level debug of complex embedded systems.

SB Navigator provides SoC developers with the critical bus-level visibility needed to simplify and facilitate analysis of core-level intercommunications when developing complex SoCs. The versatility of SB Navigator makes it an effective solution for silicon testing and integration, software handshaking and protocol optimizations, and BIOS firmware, and applications development.

"When designing with state-of-the-art, high performance intelligent internal interconnects, such as SiliconBackplane, there is a need for new types of debug and analysis tools to visualize the internal workings of these very sophisticated SoCs. FS2 utilized Sonics' vast system knowledge to help provide a highly attractive feature set for our Navigator tools," said Rick Leatherman, president of First Silicon Solutions.

"SB Navigator provides much needed visibility into the dynamics of SoC data flows that is critical for architectural exploration, and also helps Sonics in its initiative to advance reference design flows for its SMART Interconnects," added Drew Wingard, chief technology officer for Sonics.

SB Navigator consists of an on-chip instrumentation (OCI(R)) block that connects through the SiliconBackplane snoop port to provide in-silicon based triggering and trace, along with support for JTAG probe control and display system analysis software intercommunications. SB Navigator can be used standalone, or as part of FS2's Multi-core Embedded Debug (MED(R)) on-chip instrumentation reference design for embedded silicon analysis, which includes multi-core system HyperDebug(TM) blocks, processor specific in-system analyzer blocks, and other bus and logic specific instrumentation options.

The silicon overhead of SB Navigator in a design is as low as 30K gates, plus user defined on-chip RAM for trace. SB Navigator supports bus alignment trace mode, which allows multi-cycle bus operations to be triggered and viewed as a simplified single cycle transaction. SB Navigator can also optionally filter trace to exclude idle or other unwanted bus cycles.

SB Navigator is supported by the FS2 System Navigator family of probes to connect to the target system using a 14-pin debug connector. The FS2 System Navigator runs over Win2000/XP PC over a USB 2.0 port or optional 10/100 Ethernet connection. The System Navigator OE (original edition) uses a USB 1.1 or IEEE-1284 EPP/ECP high-speed parallel port.

FS2 SB Navigator key features:

--Real-time trace for over 175 signals (for 64 bit data bus) through the snoop bus port

--Supports raw trace or bus alignment in line processing of SiliconBackplane signals

--Comprehensive "logic analyzer look and feel" GUI and Command line control interface

--Multi-level combinatorial and sequential triggering for advanced trace and system control

--External triggering, dual counter, and timestamp options for advanced debug and analysis

--On Chip Instrumentation provided as fully synthesizable, vender neutral RTL 

--Standalone operation or customized integration with processor debug tools

--Supported via JTAG interfaces under both Windows(R) and Linux

Availability

FS2 SB Navigator is available now. Contact FS2 or visit http://www.fs2.com for information.

About First Silicon Solutions (FS2)

FS2 specializes in custom silicon IP, design services and OCI(R) (On-chip Instrumentation) development tools for programming, testing and debug of embedded systems in FPGA, SoC, SOPC, ASSP and ASIC devices. FS2 OCI-based products include CLAM(R) (Configurable Logic Analyzer Modules) based Logic Navigator(TM) and Bus Navigator(TM) tools for IP debug, core specific System Navigator tools for processor debug and trace, and MED(R) (Multi-core Embedded Debug) tools for SoC debug. FS2 products enable silicon vendors and their customers to develop and more effectively market their products, reduce development cycles, allowing them to focus on delivering all the potential of the system on silicon.

FS2, SB Navigator, MED, HyperDebug, and OCI are trademarks of First Silicon Solutions, Inc. Sonics is a registered trademark and SMART Interconnects, and SiliconBackplane are trademarks of Sonics, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.