Date: 15/07/2009

iSolve SATA from Mentor Graphics to test SoCs for their SATA II performance

Mentor Graphics has made available a new tool to test SoC class semiconductor devices with SATA II interface. This tool named iSolve can simulate the real disk drive and CD/DVD connection.
iSolve SATA product has a 'plug-and-play' interface to the Mentor Graphics' Veloce family of hardware-assisted emulators.

The SATA II transfer the data from disk to processor at speeds of 3Gb/s. It's now the most commonly used disk interface in latest PCs and computers with HDDs.

"New consumer and network storage products increasingly depend upon the use of the latest-generation SATA devices, and design engineers are concerned over how they can quickly and efficiently verify their SoC designs that connect to these devices," said Jim Kenney, Mentor Emulation Division (MED) director of marketing. "We took a new approach to solve these challenges with our iSolve SATA product, by providing a flexible, easy-to-use, and highly-configurable SATA device model. This gives our customers the ability to verify multiple configurations and descriptions of SATA devices, all with the same emulator solution rather than needing many specific devices."

The iSolve SATA solution can be used with traditional in-circuit emulation (ICE) and also in high-performance transaction-based acceleration mode of operation allowing smooth transition from simulation-centric use models to ICE.