Cycle Accurate Simulator (CAS) for nP3705 Packet Processor - Applied Micro Circuits

AMCC (Applied Micro Circuits Corp.) introduced  a Cycle Accurate Simulator (CAS)  software for its  nP3705 packet processor. The new software features a virtual system prototyping solution that is generated from the nP3705 design files. The nP3705 CAS provides developers with a powerful resource that can be used for integration testing of software partitioned between the control CPU and the packet processor, including configuring and exercising the integrated Traffic Manager and Channel Service Manager functional blocks within the nP3705 packet processor.

About AMCC's nP3705 Packet Processor
The nP3705 is an OC-24 packet processing and traffic management solution. In addition to highperformance packet processing and fine-grained traffic management, the nP3705 includes specialized coprocessors that perform classification, policing, and coherent database management for unparalleled line-rate performance. The nP3705 packet processor expands AMCC's packet processor technology to multi-service access applications.

Developed over several generations of traffic management and packet processor products, AMCC's packet processor technology unites the flexibility of the industry's highest performance packetprocessing nPcore with the most widely deployed and mature traffic management technology. This unique combination enables developers to achieve extremely fine-grained control of subscriber traffic, without impacting the ability to perform complex protocol inter-working at media speeds. The singlestage programming model dramatically simplifies software development and troubleshooting for faster time-to-market.

The nP3705 CAS is a platform-level simulator that utilizes Carbon Design Systems’ model generation technology to provide a cycle-accurate simulation of the nP3705 subsystem that includes Reduced Latency DRAM (RLDRAM) and Quad Data Rate (QDR) external memories, and GE and FE interfaces.

Carbon's model generation technology automatically generates an executable software representation of the nP3705 directly from the RTL. This path guarantees correctness and delivers a model which executes extremely quickly in a small memory footprint. Carbon's technology seamlessly scales to AMCC's Delivers Comprehensive Evaluation Kit, Accelerating Customers' Time-to-Market millions of gates while still retaining complete RTL accuracy and enabling rapid system and software debug.

Charlie Ashton,  AMCC, stated:

AMCC is committed to providing the necessary tools that our customers need to get an early start on their software development and deployment…

The nP3705 Cycle Accurate Simulator provides an environment to start development on the nP3705 processor as well as an effective platform for our customers to debug and verify their products…

The nP3705 subsystem configuration is based on the AdvancedTCA (ATCA) form factor hardware evaluation platform named Saguaro. The Saguaro platform includes an nP3705 packet processor for data-plane functions, an AMCC PowerPC 440EP processor for the control plane, and AMCC's Amur S1215 integrated SONET/SDH deep-channelization framer device.

Price of AMCC's nP3705 Cycle Accurate Simulator (CAS) is US$9500.

Source: AMCC's nP3705 Cycle Accurate Simulator (CAS)