Innovative high speed serial controller testing

A method in a functional semiconductor device, the method comprising:

• originating a shuttle transaction from a transaction originator of the functional semiconductor device;
• issuing the shuttle transaction onto a device fabric of the functional semiconductor device from the transaction originator, the issued shuttle transaction being directed toward a serial Input/Output interface (serial IO interface) of the functional semiconductor device by the transaction originator;
• wherein the shuttle transaction includes a shuttle header and a shuttle payload having embedded therein one or more passenger transactions for issuance onto the device fabric;
• receiving the shuttle transaction at the serial IO interface via a virtualized device logic embedded within the serial IO interface of the functional semiconductor device;
• stripping the shuttle header from the shuttle transaction to expose the one or more passenger transactions;
• and
• issuing the one or more passenger transactions onto the device fabric of the functional semiconductor device from the serial IO interface.

A system comprising:

• a CPU core module (processor) and a memory to execute instructions;
• a printed circuit board (PCB) motherboard having the memory mounted thereupon;
• and
• a functional semiconductor device mounted to the PCB motherboard, the functional semiconductor device comprising:
• (i) the processor;
• (ii) a serial Input/Output interface (serial IO interface);
• (iii) a device fabric to carry transactions between a plurality of components of the functional semiconductor device;
• (iv) virtualized device logic embedded within the serial IO interface;
• (v) a transaction originator to originate a shuttle transaction and to issue the shuttle transaction onto the device fabric directed toward the serial IO interface;
• and
• wherein the shuttle transaction includes a shuttle header and a shuttle payload having embedded therein one or more passenger transactions for issuance onto the device fabric;
• wherein the virtualized device logic is to receive the shuttle transaction at the serial IO interface via the device fabric;
• wherein the virtualized device logic is to strip the shuttle header from the shuttle transaction to expose the one or more passenger transactions;
• and wherein the virtualized device logic is to issue the one or more passenger transactions onto the device fabric.