8th May 2018 - NetSpeed Systems, Inc. and Northwest Logic today announced a partnership to deliver high throughput memory subsystem solutions for customers designing SoCs for hyperscale and automotive applications. The combination of NetSpeed’s interconnect IP and Northwest Logic’s HBM2 and GDDR6 memory controllers provides a platform that enables end-to-end QoS (Quality of Service), resiliency and high performance.

When designing a high-performance SoC, memory is almost always the critical bottleneck. It is a challenging problem because the individual IPs on the chip interact in complex ways and have differing performance requirements. Furthermore, QoS is a critical requirement for today’s advanced SoCs, especially those that drive real-time applications. Standard design approaches focus on each IP making local decisions, which is not necessarily best for overall system performance.

To get the best system level performance from advanced architectures, such as heterogeneous system architectures, the interconnect and memory controllers must work hand-in-hand. NetSpeed and Northwest Logic provide a common platform for communicating information about QoS and resiliency. The platform extends NetSpeed's dynamic-priority elevation approach to the memory controller so that system-level traffic-flow priorities are handled in an end-to-end solution. 

“Northwest Logic’s high-performance, highly configurable HBM2 controller is the market leader,” said Brian Daellenbach, President of Northwest Logic. “Through the NetSpeed partnership, we are able to provide a complete, high-performance memory controller + interconnect IP platform for mutual customers in the hyperscale and automotive market segments.”

“NetSpeed’s market leadership in the hyperscale and automotive segments is strengthened through our partnership with Northwest Logic,” said Anush Mohandass, VP of marketing and business development at NetSpeed. “Our integration with Northwest Logic provides customers end-to-end QoS and end-to-end resiliency that is needed for next-gen applications.”