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GRL and Anritsu Release PCI Express 4.0 Receiver Test Automation Solution (GRL-PCIE4-BASE-RXA) | GraniteRiverLabs

Written by GRL Team | Nov 30, 2015 4:00:00 PM

Enables Validation of Early PCI Express 4.0 Silicon Designs to the Latest Base Specification

Granite River Labs (GRL) and Anritsu Corporation have released a test solution for Receiver testing of early PCI Express® 4.0 designs using the Anritsu MP1800A Signal Analyzer and Bit Error Rate Tester (BERT) series and GRL-PCIE4-BASE-RXA test automation software. The
GRL-PCIE4-BASE-RXA software is available directly from GRL.

The PCI Express (PCIe) 4.0 standard provides a 16 GT/s line rate, double the previous 3.0 standard, requiring even higher precision calibration.  Receiver test calibration is a complex procedure requiring control of multiple parameters, such as addition of emphasis and multiple jitter types (SJ, RJ, etc.), as well as the addition of common mode and differential mode noise.

GRL-PCIE4-BASE-RXA receiver test automation software significantly reduces the complexities of test signal calibration and helps ensure consistency with the specification.  GRL-PCIE4-BASE-RXA automates calibration of the stressed eye opening, following an industry-standard methodology using the Seasim statistical data eye simulator, and receiver conformance testing. Coupled with the performance of the Anritsu MP1800A series, including low intrinsic jitter, low noise, and high input sensitivity, this solution assures reproducible test results to the PCIe 4.0 Base Specification.

The test solution includes the MP1800A, noise signal source, variable ISI channel, Keysight 32 GHz (or higher bandwidth) real-time oscilloscope, and the GRL-PCIE4-BASE-RXA software, which controls the entire system to automate calibration and simplify jitter tolerance tests.  In addition, the MP1800A wideband BERT also has the waveform and high input sensitivity performance required for evaluating other high speed serial interfaces such as 100G Ethernet, 32G Fibre Channel, Thunderbolt 3 over USB Type-C®, and InfiniBand.

”GRL is proud to offer this this solution to the PCI Express developer community in partnership with Anritsu, and add to our list of contributions to the enterprise storage ecosystem,” said Miki Takahashi, GRL Director of Signal Integrity Engineering. “Our PCIe 4.0 base specification receiver test automation software provides engineers a valuable new tool in their arsenal to efficiently debug and validate early PCIe 4.0 silicon designs.”

Key features of the GRL-PCIE4-BASE-RXA PCI Express® 4.0 Base Specification Receiver test automation software include:

  • Supports one-button Receiver Jitter Tolerance and Margin tests in reference to PCI Express Base Specification 4.0 v0.5
  • Supports highly-reproducible stressed signal calibration and receiver conformance testing
  • Automatically controls variable ISI channel and calibrates eye opening
  • Simplifies measurement condition settings and test execution
  • Saves reports in .html and .csv formats

About Anritsu Corporation
Anritsu’s flagship measuring instrument business provides products and services indispensable to the development, manufacture and maintenance of a range of communication systems as typified in mobile phones and the Internet on a global scale.  With a foundation afforded by the measuring technologies accumulated over its history of more than 120 years, Anritsu will continue to contribute to the realization of a safe, secure and comfortable society. For more information please visit Anritsu.

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