High-Speed I/O Validation Tools for Intel Atom Micro Server Designs

Over the last eight years, Intel and ASSET have collaborated on validation and test tools which deliver extensive visibility of the signal integrity on high-speed buses in order to overcome the shortcomings of legacy intrusive probe-based test equipment such as oscilloscopes and logic analyzers. Because buses with speeds in excess of 5 gigabits per second become super-sensitive to capacitive coupling effects, the signaling on these buses is distorted when a physical probe is placed on them. To counteract this, Intel developed and is implementing an instrumentation technology that is embedded in its advanced chips. ASSET’s ScanWorks HSIO for Intel Architecture (IA) is the first and only non-intrusive software-based toolkit to take advantage of Intel’s embedded instrumentation technology.

“The speed of memory and I/O buses on micro server designs is just as critical to the throughput of the system as is the speed of the Intel Atom processor itself,” said Tim Caffee, ASSET’s vice president of design validation and test. “Thoroughly validating these types of designs requires advanced tools that do not require physical access to the bus. Most of these designs do not provide test pads or points on the buses because they only introduce anomalies into the signaling and degrade its performance. That’s why non-intrusive tools like ScanWorks are becoming a necessity.”

The ScanWorks HSIO validation tools now support all of Intel’s processor platforms, including Intel Core processors for desktop, mobile and ultrathin laptops, Intel Xeon processors for servers, embedded and communications, and storage systems, and now Atom processors for micro servers, system-on-a-chip and other types of systems. ASSET is a key third party vendor to Intel.

“The buses on Intel Atom micro server designs have the same kinds of issues as the high-speed buses have on other Intel platforms,” Caffee said. “During the last eight years, we’ve developed a close working collaboration with Intel. Now, it’s paying off for Intel Atom designers with a fourth-generation product.”

Pricing and Availability:
ScanWorks High-Speed I/O for Intel Architecture based on Intel Atom is available now. Pricing for a one-year subscription is $10,000.