Stand-Out Veteran Provider of FPGA Prototyping Solutions at #59DAC

S2C’s Shines at DAC 2022 with its New Prodigy Player Pro-7 Prototyping Software, Multi-FPGA Prototype Hardware Platforms, and Complete Prototyping Solutions

The 59th Design Automation Conference returned to San Francisco’s Moscone Center this year to notch almost six decades of week-long immersion in EDA technology and market trends, combining keynote presentations by industry luminaries with the “DAC Engineering Track” technical presentations and the EDA tool-provider exhibits for in-person exchanges of EDA user-needs and the latest EDA solutions.  Attendance by exhibitors, and EDA tool end-users alike, was noticeably improved from last year’s conference but still below pre-COVID levels.  The Moscone Center neighborhood provided a less than inviting convention venue as San Francisco recovers from COVID’s decimation of the convention-generated commerce around the Center marred by heavily littered streets, a very noticeable presence of “street people”, and the closure of many name-brand businesses that are normally sustained by the “collateral business” generated by convention attendees.

Despite the lower DAC attendance, S2C saw a marked improvement in the quantity and quality of visitors to the S2C booth.  S2C highlighted its latest hardware and software and provided interactive demonstrations of its Prodigy MDM Pro multi-FPGA debug tools and its Prodigy ProtoBridge high-throughput channel for the transfer of large amounts of transaction-level data between the FPGA prototype and a host computer – both demonstrations running on S2C’s Quad Logic System prototyping hardware featuring Intel’s massive Stratix GX 10M FPGAs.

S2C took the opportunity at DAC to roll out its newest version of its prototyping software Prodigy Player Pro-7.  The new software suite includes Player Pro-RunTime, for prototype platform control and hardware test; Player Pro-CompileTime, with enhanced automation of multi-FPGA partitioning and pre/post-partition timing analysis; and Player Pro-DebugTime, for multi-FPGA debug probing and trace viewing with S2C’s class-leading MDM Pro debug tools.

With an emphasis on large-scale SoC design prototyping, Player Pro-7 offers enhanced support for multi-FPGA implementations, including:

• RTL Partitioning and Module Replication to support Parallel Design Compilation and reduce Time-to-Implementation
• Pre/Post-Partition System-Level Timing Analysis for Increased Prototyping Productivity
• SerDes TDM Mode for Optimal Multi-FPGA Partition Interconnect and Higher Prototype Performance

Prodigy Player Pro-7 Prototyping Software Suite

S2C displayed a number of its latest prototyping products in its DAC booth this year, including the Prodigy Logic System 10M based on the industry’s largest FPGA, Intel’s Stratix 10 GX 10M. Also on display were S2C’s Xilinx-based prototyping hardware, the Prodigy S7-19P Logic System, and the S7-9P Logic System, both getting their fair share of DAC attendee attention.

The highlight of the S2C booth was the new Prodigy Logic Matrix LX2.  Based on Xilinx’s largest Virtex Ultrascale+ FPGA, the LX2 boasts eight VU19P；for expansion beyond eight FPGAs, up to eight LX2s can be housed in a single standard server rack, extending prototyping gate-capacity up to sixty-four VU19P FPGAs. For expansion beyond eight FPGAs, the LX2 architecture is designed for prototyping with up to eight LX2’s in a single standard server rack, extending prototyping gate-capacity up to sixty-four VU19P FPGAs.  At this level of FPGA prototyping density, hardware quality and reliability become first-order considerations, and S2C’s 18+ year proven track record of delivering high-quality prototyping hardware sets a high bar for other prototyping solutions.

S2C DAC 2022 Booth at Moscone Center in San Francisco

To enable users to configure prototyping platforms quickly and reliably, S2C displayed a sampling of its Prototype Ready IP in the booth.  Prototype Ready IP are off-the-shelf daughter cards designed by S2C to plug-and-play with S2C prototyping hardware platforms.  The daughter cards are designed to attach reliably to the FPGA prototype hardware and compose a rich collection of prototyping functions, including High-Speed GT Peripherals (Ethernet, PCIe, MIPI, SATA, high-performance cables, etc.), General Peripherals (GPIO, USB, mini-SAS, JTAG, RS232, etc.), Memory Modules (EMMC, DDR, SRAM, etc.), ARM Processor Interface Modules, Embedded and Multimedia modules (DVI, HDMI, MIPI, etc.), and Expansion and Accessories modules (FMC-HPC Converters, Level Shifters, I/O Test Modules, DDR Memory Modules for user-supplied external memory, Interconnect Cables, Clock Modules, etc.).

The S2C Prodigy Multi-Debug Module Pro demonstrations at the booth showcased the implementation of S2C’s multi-FPGA debug tools for prototyping with a combination of external hardware, soft IP implemented in the FPGA, high-speed FPGA I/O, and debug configuration software (Player Pro-DebugTime).  MDM Pro was designed specifically to support multi-FPGA prototype implementations – with support for high probe-counts, deep-trace debug data storage, optimization of debugging reconfiguration compiles, and with the ability to choose debug configuration tradeoffs to optimize prototype performance.  The Player Pro-DebugTime software supports user-friendly debug configuration, complex trace-data capture triggering, and single-window viewing on the user console of simultaneous streams of trace-data from multiple FPGAs.  MDM Pro hardware supports high-performance deep-trace debug data storage without consuming internal FPGA storage resources.

S2C Prodigy Multi-Debug Module (MDM)

S2C also demonstrated its Prodigy ProtoBridge in the DAC booth to showcase its off-the-shelf solution for a high-throughput channel (4GB/second) between the FPGA prototype and a host computer for the application of large amounts of transaction-level test data to the FPGA prototype – such as processor bus transactions, video data streams, communications channel transactions, etc.  ProtoBridge uses a PCI-to-AXI interface implemented in the FPGA and connected to the user’s RTL as an AXI-4 bus.  ProtoBridge includes a set of C-API function calls to perform AXI bus transactions in the FPGA prototype, a PCIe3 driver for Linux or Windows operating systems to control Logic System operations, C-API reference operations with sample access to FPGA internal memory, and an integration guide on how to connect the user’s RTL code to the ProtoBridge AXI-4 bus module.

S2C Prodigy ProtoBridge

Overall, DAC 2022 was a successful conference for S2C, firmly establishing S2C as the leading independent FPGA prototyping supplier, with the strongest track record of delivering complete prototyping solutions worldwide.

The FPGA prototyping hardware and software displayed at DAC are available now. For more information, please contact your local S2C sales representative, or visit www.s2cinc.com

Also read:

Multi-FPGA Prototyping Software – Never Enough of a Good Thing

Flexible prototyping for validation and firmware workflows

White Paper: Advanced SoC Debug with Multi-FPGA Prototyping