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RapidIO Trade Association Recognizes Collaborative Efforts of Ecosystem Members to Test Serial RapidIO Component Interoperability

Freescale Semiconductor, Inc., Texas Instruments Incorporated, Tundra Semiconductor Corporation, and Xilinx, Inc. join in cooperative effort to demonstrate first-level interoperability testing.

Applauding the efforts of market leaders Freescale Semiconductor, Inc., Texas Instruments Incorporated, Tundra Semiconductor Corporation, and Xilinx, Inc. (NASDAQ: XLNX), The RapidIO Trade Association hailed the group’s demonstration of first-level interoperability testing. This interoperability work is a critical milestone that will help further deployment of RapidIO technology-based systems in a wide range of applications including the wireless infrastructure, edge networking, storage, scientific, military and industrial markets. The interoperability tests build on the trade associations RapidIO Interconnect Specification Device Interoperability and Compliance Checklists, 1.3 Spec, which was developed for ecosystem members as a guide in developing their products.

Working as a team, RapidIO ecosystem members have delivered a clear and powerful message: market leaders are determined to ensure the tools needed for OEMs to create and build systems leveraging the wide range of RapidIO products on the market are readily available, said Tom Cox, executive director of the RapidIO Trade Association. This leadership and commitment is evident not only of the group working on these tests, but of the entire RapidIO Trade Association membership.

According to the team involved in the project, technology experts created multiple levels of Interoperability checklist items. The first level of device interoperability tests ensures Device A is proven to pass a given test with Device B. The subsequent group of checklist items focuses on RapidIO Specification compliance. Building on this work, the team's long-term goal is to partition device interoperability and specification compliance tests into multiple levels of tests, each building off of the other.

"As the first vendor to deliver RapidIO technology-based processors to the market, including the award-winning PowerQUICC III product family, were excited to see more extensive system-level deployment of RapidIO enabled products, said Lakshmi Mandyam, segment marketing manager for Freescale Semiconductors Digital Systems Division. With more RapidIO capable silicon products interoperating in deployed systems, it’s increasingly important for our customers to have confidence that the devices work together as specified. That’s why this interoperability work is so important." A wide range of RapidIO silicon and products is currently available: semiconductors (DSPs, Microprocessors, Switches, FPGAs, ASIC Library Support), software (Processor and DSP RTOS Support), and boards and modules (ATCA Carrier Cards, AMC Modules for DSPs, Processors). As products proliferate, OEMs expect RapidIO Trade Association members to ensure interoperability so they can design systems with certainty. The recent interoperability demonstration has proven the RapidIO Trade Association members are delivering on that expectation.