Chip validation is critical throughout a product’s lifecycle, from development to manufacturing. Given the substantial investment—tens to hundreds of millions of dollars—required for new ASIC development, pre-silicon verification is crucial. This involves functional and performance testing in the RTL design phase, typically using simulations for smaller blocks and FPGA-based testing for larger subsystems. Upon receiving the manufactured silicon, initial testing across technology process variations occurs during bring-up, followed by intensive post-silicon validation of functionality and performance in various operational scenarios.

Once validated, the chip enters production, where continuous performance monitoring detects defects and ensures product quality. Customer feedback on unexpected performance issues necessitates thorough testing by the semiconductor vendor’s support team, using specialized networking tools to recreate and resolve reported scenarios.

Ethernet Traffic Generators like Teledyne LeCroy’s Freya, Thor, Loki, and Odin products facilitate hardware-level silicon verification, validation, debugging and production testing throughout the silicon’s lifecycle, offering customizable packet flow generation and comprehensive test suites for evaluating throughput, latency, jitter, and more. Additionally, the XOA Python API allows for tailored test script development, promoting efficient testing across all stages of ASIC deployment.