// Protocol training

Every protocol on modern silicon.

From AMBA on-chip fabric to high-speed serial links – we cover the protocols semiconductor companies actually hire for.

// AMBA

3 protocols

AMBA on-chip buses

  • APB

    Low-power peripheral bus.

    Read/write handshake · Non-pipelined transfers · Simple state machine

  • AHB

    High-performance system bus.

    Pipelined burst transfers · Multi-master arbitration · Split & retry responses

  • AXI

    5-channel high-throughput bus.

    Independent read/write channels · Out-of-order completion · QoS + region signalling

// Low-Speed

5 protocols

Low-speed peripherals

  • UART

    Async serial link.

    Baud-rate generation · Framing, parity, stop bits · FIFOs + interrupts

  • SPI

    Full-duplex 4-wire link.

    CPOL / CPHA modes · Master-slave chip selects · High-throughput short bursts

  • I²C

    2-wire multi-drop bus.

    7/10-bit addressing · Clock stretching · Multi-master arbitration

  • GPIO

    General-purpose I/O.

    Direction control · Edge/level interrupts · Alt-function muxing

  • JTAG

    Test access & debug.

    TAP controller FSM · Boundary scan · Debug port for CPUs

// High-Speed

6 protocols

High-speed serial links

  • PCIe

    Serial expansion bus (Gen1–Gen7).

    TLP / DLLP layers · LTSSM state machine · Virtual channels & QoS

  • DDR

    DDR3 / DDR4 / DDR5 memory.

    Bank / row / column commands · Training + calibration · ECC & refresh

  • USB

    USB 2.0 / 3.x / 4.

    Enumeration & descriptors · Device classes · Transaction types

  • CXL

    Cache-coherent accelerator link.

    CXL.io / .cache / .mem · Coherency semantics · Host-device flows

  • CHI

    ARM coherent hub interface.

    Snoop channels · MOESI-style coherency · Data-less transactions

  • Ethernet

    1G / 10G / 100G MAC + PHY.

    MAC framing · PCS / PMA layers · PTP / TSN extensions

Learn any protocol in depth.

Protocol modules are bundled into the Design & Verification track and available as advance electives.