Accelerate Time-to-Market with Microchip’s ChipLink Development Tool

Delivering a quality end market product not only involves selecting the right components – but also selecting the right supplier that delivers both support and tooling that accelerates that product’s time to market. The capability to configure, monitor, and diagnose component functions as well as test interoperability and performance between those components requires time and effort from the time of initial bring-up all the way through ecosystem testing and final release to mass production. Selecting a partner with a broad portfolio of components that have been fully validated and also tested for interoperability is a key element of success. But equally important is tooling that supports your end market product’s unique product requirements. Microchip’s ChipLink tool is a Java-based, multi-platform, GUI based tool that brings together all your Microchip components to support all phases of your program’s development. 
 
ChipLink’s suite of tools is managed from a single pane-of-glass interface that spans the Microchip Data Center Solutions family of products including: XpressConnect™ Retimers, Switchtec™ PCIe® switches, SmartROC and SmartIOC controllers, Adaptec® SmartRAID and SmartHBA adapters, SAS Expanders, Flashtec® NVMe™ controllers, and Smart Memory controller product lines.  

ChipLink complements the capabilities of our market leading products with the intuitive GUI-based cross-platform interface allowing you to explore device functionality and test configuration settings in early development, validate testing and hardware characterization in pre-production and perform forensic debug capabilities in post-production.  Immediate visual feedback is provided at each step. ChipLink is designed to manage multiple Microchip devices interactively and simultaneously in your system.

>>> Watch the video Introducing the Microchip ChipLink Advanced Tool Platform. <<<

Within ChipLink you can manage and identify configuration issues, generate configuration files, retrieve the latest documentation with the click of the mouse, and access forensic eye captures all within the GUI. ChipLink has been proven to drastically reduce bring-up time compared to the other tools. From prototype to production, from the lab to the field, configuration, testing and debugging are accomplished with ease and efficiency. 

ChipLink Highlights:

• Allows connections to multiple devices at once
• Full PCIe and SAS Transmit and Receive controls with analog transmit tuning and receiver coefficients, per lane link equalization 
• Eye Capture tool and margining tools to check SERDES eye opening with integrated BER bathtub curve
• PCIe Analyzer and configurable Stack Error Counters for quick debug of transaction layer issues
• Comprehensive FW logging 
• Macro interface for user-authored automation scripts supporting Java, Python, and TCL languages
• Tabbed workspace allows use of multiple tools at once
• Progress indication for long operations with option to cancel
• User-friendly, well organized, intuitive controls
• Many options for device connection

Advanced visualization and management tools make storage and compute topologies easy to setup and adjust. Setup your NVMe fabric with the PAX Fabric Manager, or view your SAS storage network with the SAS Topology Viewer. ChipLink even provides signal generation and includes a built in PCIe Analyzer. Advanced tools include PRBS generators, TLP generators and analyzers, ordered set analyzers and LTSSM monitors.

For generation after generation, Microchip’s Data Center Solutions team has invested in a comprehensive and intuitive toolset that can help speed up your time to market. Market leading companies worldwide are currently using ChipLink, and regard it as the industry’s best development support tool suite. Let our technology enable your innovation.