Design Of FPGA Prototype Verification Platform For PCIE Switch Chip

With the continuous development of integrated circuits,the difficulty in verifying chips is increasing.Currently,the time consumed in verifying a chip accounts for 60% of its whole design cycle,so how to improve the effectiveness and comprehensiveness of verification is now plaguing the chip design.Although traditional EDA simulation is generally applied to the verification,it has such shortcomings as slow speed and incomprehensive verification.FPGA prototype verification not only has the advantages of faster verification and more comprehensive verification,but also can simulate the actual working environment of the chip and the resulting simulation results are more accurate.It is very important for PCIE switch chip to verify a large amount of data.However,due to the fact that the traditional EDA emulation is not good at the verification of a large amount of data,independent EDA simulation can't meet the demands of verifying the PCIE switch chip.The FPGA prototype verification is very good at the verification of a large amount of data,so in the design process of PCIE switch chip,FPGA prototype verification has a very important role.First,this paper studied basic structures of PCIE switch chip and basic content of relevant protocols,including PCI Express protocol,JTAG protocol and AMBA AHB protocol.Then on the basis of introducing the basic structure of FPGA,considering FPGA performance,cost and project requirements,the FPGA model used by the FPGA prototyping platform is XC7VX485 T.Then the paper introduces the overall structure of FPGA prototype verification platform and the FPGA prototype verification platform is mainly composed of computer host,PCIE TU board,XJLINK JTAG controller and DUT board.Then the paper introduces the main structure and function of PCIE TU board and the main structure and function of each component.PCIE TU board is mainly composed of HCRU module,AHB bus,RC module,EP module,PIPE-MUX module and GTX module.PCIE TU board is able to convert test vectors into PCIE protocol form and complete the verification of exchange function of the PCIE switch chip.After the logical design of the FPGA prototype verification platform of the PCIE switch chip is completed,the author uses the EDA tool to build a virtual simulation verification platform and performs virtual simulation verification for PCIE switch chip DUT.After the completion of the hardware platform of FPGA,PCI protocol analyzer is used to verify the protocol consistency of PCIE Express chip DUT.The final verification results of virtual emulation as well as the results of PCI Expressprotocol analyzer absolutely comply with the provision of PCI Express protocol and PCI Express switch chip handbook.This means that the logic design of the FPGA prototype verification platform is correct.The FPGA prototype verification platform can accomplish the prototype verification task of the PCIE switch chip.