Design and verification of the IBM System z10 I/O subsystem chips

In this paper, we discuss the microarchitecture, design, and verification of two IBM System z10™ I/O (input/output) chips: the z10™ hub chip, an In.niBand™ host channel adapter with IBM-proprietary enhancements, and the InfiniBand memory bus adapter (MBA) chip, an InfiniBand-to-self-timed-interface fanout chip for attaching legacy I/O. Designing and verifying these chips presented many challenges. We describe our transaction- and packet-tracking concepts and the use of communication groups that emulate the behavior of logical partitions and their role in handling error and recovery cases. A novel technique has been employed to ensure that design implementation and architectural register definitions are consistent in a fully automated approach. Finally, we describe our approach to improving self-test coverage, which is based on an automated process of test-point insertion. © Copyright 2009 by International Business Machines Corporation.