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Samsung and Cadence: Accelerating SSD Product Development with IoT
Technology Category
- Analytics & Modeling - Digital Twin / Simulation
- Sensors - Temperature Sensors
Applicable Industries
- Electronics
Applicable Functions
- Product Research & Development
- Quality Assurance
Use Cases
- Virtual Prototyping & Product Testing
- Virtual Reality
Services
- Hardware Design & Engineering Services
- System Integration
The Challenge
Samsung, a market leader in solid-state drives (SSDs), decided to add a PCI Express interface to its SSD controllers in 2012 to increase data transfer performance and expand its market share. Traditionally, SSDs were based on the SATA protocol used for HDDs, which was compatible but had performance and throughput limitations when used with non-volatile memory. The addition of PCI Express to Samsung’s SSD significantly increased the challenges faced in device and software validation, particularly at the system-on-chip (SoC) level. This required a significant performance increase in the validation environment to validate PCI Express behavior at the SoC level, integrate and debug host driver software, and validate end-to-end bulk DMA transfers. Samsung initially attempted to use their traditional approach—a simulated testbench using simulation verification IP (VIP)—but found it too slow and inefficient for their needs with the PCI Express interface.
About The Customer
Samsung is a market share leader in solid-state drives (SSDs), an innovative, nonvolatile storage medium commonly used in laptops and servers in place of a rotating hard disk drive (HDD). This technology saves on power, space, and cost while simultaneously increasing product reliability. As a result, SSDs are increasingly being employed in mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones. In 2012, Samsung decided to add a PCI Express interface to its SSD controllers to increase the data transfer performance, expecting this innovation to expand its market share and to address additional OEM markets.
The Solution
To overcome the challenges, Samsung turned to Cadence for an accelerated validation solution. Cadence recommended its Palladium® XP-based validation environment using the simulation acceleration use model together with Accelerated VIP (AVIP) for PCI Express. This new environment fit in well with Samsung’s existing one, which included simulation and FPGA prototype boards. Acceleration with AVIP provided the level of control and observability available with simulation, but it ran hundreds of times faster and was available months ahead of an FPGA-based platform. Within three weeks, the accelerated validation environment including the PCI Express AVIP was up and running, enabling Samsung to find bugs they were unable to reach using simulation.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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