Accelerating PCB development and debug in advance of platform ASIC prototype samples

Abstract

A system and method are provided for accelerating development and debug of a printed circuit board (PCB) designed for use with a platform ASIC in advance of availability of a prototype sample of the platform ASIC. Aspects of the invention include a pin-out adapter card that implements a predefined pin-out of the ASIC and that hosts FPGA logic resources for emulating I/O functionality and some (or all) of the ASIC core logic; a PCB designed for use with the platform ASIC, wherein the PCB includes the predefined ASIC pin-out for eventually mating with the ASIC; and a socket having mating connectors on both sides for mating with the ASIC pin-out on the PCB and to the ASIC pin-out on the adapter card, respectively, for coupling the adapter card to the PCB, thereby enabling development and debug of the PCB prior to availability of ASIC samples.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.