Cadence Design Systems Case Studies Samsung and Cadence: Accelerating SSD Product Development with IoT

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	Samsung and Cadence: Accelerating SSD Product Development with IoT Cadence Design Systems

Samsung and Cadence: Accelerating SSD Product Development with IoT

Cadence Design Systems

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
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. Read More
About 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. Read More
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. Read More Log in to view content
Contents

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

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 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.

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.

Impact #1	The implementation of Cadence's solution significantly improved Samsung's SSD product development process. The accelerated validation environment provided by Cadence not only increased the validation speed by hundreds of times compared to the traditional simulation but also doubled the productivity of the validation team. This was due to the reduced waiting time between simulations. Moreover, the solution enabled Samsung to find bugs that were previously unreachable using simulation. Given its effectiveness, Samsung plans to deploy the Cadence solution on future projects as well. The Palladium-based validation environment with AVIP can now be ported to any of Samsung's upcoming PCI Express-based SSDs with minimal effort.

Impact #1

The implementation of Cadence's solution significantly improved Samsung's SSD product development process. The accelerated validation environment provided by Cadence not only increased the validation speed by hundreds of times compared to the traditional simulation but also doubled the productivity of the validation team. This was due to the reduced waiting time between simulations. Moreover, the solution enabled Samsung to find bugs that were previously unreachable using simulation. Given its effectiveness, Samsung plans to deploy the Cadence solution on future projects as well. The Palladium-based validation environment with AVIP can now be ported to any of Samsung's upcoming PCI Express-based SSDs with minimal effort.

Benefit #1	Increased validation speed multiple hundreds of times compared to simulation
Benefit #2	Increased validation team productivity by 100%
Benefit #3	Accelerated validation environment was up and running within three weeks

Benefit #1

Increased validation speed multiple hundreds of times compared to simulation

Benefit #2

Increased validation team productivity by 100%

Benefit #3

Accelerated validation environment was up and running within three weeks

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Overview

Samsung and Cadence: Accelerating SSD Product Development with IoT

Operational Impact

Quantitative Benefit