Cadence has announced a significant expansion of its Verification IP (VIP) portfolio with the introduction of 10 new VIP offerings designed specifically to support the next wave of high-performance, AI-focused semiconductor designs. As the artificial intelligence industry rapidly evolves, emerging interface standards are becoming critical to support the massive data throughput, seamless connectivity, and power efficiency that next-generation AI systems demand. By launching VIP for major new protocols—such as Ultra Accelerator Link (UALink), Ultra Ethernet Consortium (UEC), LPDDR6, UCIe 3.0, AMBA CHI-H, Embedded USB v2 (eUSB2), and UniPro 3.0—Cadence is equipping engineering teams with the tools they need to confidently design, verify, and validate complex system-on-chip (SoC) architectures built for AI workloads.
These new VIP additions strengthen Cadence’s already robust verification ecosystem, giving designers comprehensive resources to ensure their chips meet the latest specifications with precision and efficiency. As bandwidth and performance requirements skyrocket due to the explosive growth of AI, companies are facing unprecedented challenges in verifying new architectures. Cadence’s enhanced portfolio directly addresses these industry demands by delivering state-of-the-art verification solutions tailored to today’s emerging interface technologies.
The new VIP offerings target interface standards that are expected to become foundational across AI accelerators, data center infrastructure, memory systems, and high-performance computing devices. For example, UALink is emerging as an essential interconnect standard for accelerator clusters, enabling low-latency, high-bandwidth communication among GPUs and specialized AI processors. Ultra Ethernet (UEC), meanwhile, is set to redefine data communication inside next-generation data centers by providing deterministic, high-speed networking optimized for AI workloads. Similarly, LPDDR6 represents the next leap forward in low-power memory technology, offering higher speeds and better power efficiency required by both AI edge devices and cloud systems.
By developing VIP solutions for protocols like UCIe 3.0, Cadence is supporting the increasingly chiplet-driven design methodologies adopted by semiconductor manufacturers. UCIe (Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express) has quickly become a critical standard for enabling multi-die systems, allowing companies to mix and match chiplets from various vendors. UCIe 3.0 brings even higher performance and architectural flexibility, making verification tools crucial to ensure interoperability and correct behavior under all operational scenarios.
The release of VIP for AMBA CHI-H also aligns with industry trends toward high-coherency interconnects, especially for SoCs with multiple compute clusters. As AI processors scale, maintaining cache coherency across heterogeneous computing elements becomes essential, and the CHI-H standard provides the infrastructure to do so. Cadence’s new VIP helps designers verify these complex interactions early in the design cycle, reducing costly late-stage issues.
Embedded USB v2 (eUSB2), another protocol included in Cadence’s announcement, has become increasingly important in mobile and compact devices that require efficient, low-voltage connections. Similarly, UniPro 3.0 plays a significant role in high-speed, low-power communication in advanced modular systems, especially within smartphones and other mobile platforms. By offering VIP for these interface standards, Cadence is addressing a broad spectrum of application areas where AI functionality is becoming integrated at every level—from cloud acceleration to edge devices and consumer electronics.
Cadence VIP solutions have long been trusted by hundreds of customers across the semiconductor industry. These tools are known for their thoroughness, reliability, and alignment with the newest revisions of industry specifications. A core advantage of Cadence’s VIP suite is its comprehensive support for the most intricate aspects of each protocol, giving verification teams full visibility into corner cases, compliance scenarios, and performance bottlenecks that might otherwise go undetected.
Each VIP offering includes a Universal Verification Methodology (UVM) SystemVerilog test suite designed to help engineers accelerate initial bring-up and establish a robust verification baseline from the very beginning of the design process. This test suite not only automates significant portions of the verification workflow but also enables early bug detection—often from day one of integration—reducing the likelihood of late-stage design failures or unexpected behavior in silicon.
The challenges facing designers of AI-oriented chips are growing rapidly. AI models continue to increase in size and complexity, and the hardware required to support them must deliver higher bandwidth, lower latency, and more nuanced power management. At the same time, new communication and compute paradigms are emerging, reshaping architectures from the ground up. As Ziyad Hanna, Corporate Vice President at Cadence, explained, “The fast-evolving AI market creates a new level of requirements for higher bandwidth and lower power, resulting in a new set of interfaces to address these needs. Cadence is committed and proud to provide the Verification IP and tools to enable the new generation of AI SoCs.”
This statement reflects a broader industry reality: verification has become one of the most critical and resource-intensive phases of chip development. As protocols become more complex and systems become more heterogeneous—with multiple compute engines, chiplets, memory types, and accelerators all working in unison—the need for rigorous verification tools becomes essential. Verification IP plays a vital role in enabling companies to build designs that are not only functionally correct but also interoperable, standards-compliant, and efficient under real-world conditions.
The introduction of the 10 new VIP offerings showcases Cadence’s dedication to keeping pace with the evolution of AI hardware. The portfolio expansion reinforces the company’s commitment to helping customers reduce time-to-market, achieve first-silicon success, and deliver products that meet the increasingly stringent requirements of AI-driven applications. In an environment where delays or functional failures can have enormous financial and strategic repercussions, having access to high-quality, accurate, and up-to-date verification assets is invaluable.
Cadence continues to invest heavily in staying ahead of protocol updates and industry shifts. As new interface standards mature and gain adoption, the company works closely with industry bodies, ecosystem partners, and early adopters to ensure its VIP offerings reflect real-world usage scenarios. This close engagement enables Cadence to deliver verification tools that not only implement the letter of the specification but also consider practical system behaviors, corner-case patterns, and integration challenges that engineers typically encounter.
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