N5393D PCI Express® 3.0 (Gen3) Software for Infiniium Oscilloscopes

Keysight N5393D

PCI Express® 3.0 (Gen3) Software for Infiniium Oscilloscopes

Data Sheet

Verify and debug your PCI Express® designs more easily

Keysight Technologies, Inc. PCI Express electrical performance validation and compliance software provides you with a fast and easy way to verify and debug your PCI Express 3.0, 2.0, and 1.1/1.0a designs for both silicon validation (as per the PCIe® BASE specification) as well as for add-in cards and motherboard systems (as per the PCIe CEM specification).

The PCI Express electrical test software allows you to automatically execute PCI Express electrical transmitter tests, and it displays the results in a flexible report format. In addition to the measurement data, the report provides a margin analysis that shows how closely your device passed or failed each test.

The PCI Express electrical test software utilizes the prescribed test methods and algorithms as required by the PCI Express Card Electromechanical (CEM) specifications for all current PCI Express Standards. This produces results that are not only consistent with the PCI-SIG® SigTest utility, but also provides you with a fast and easy means of executing complex two-port motherboard tests and single port add-in card test with total automation.

In addition to transmitter testing, the PCI Express electrical test software also provides an optional receiver test calibration test suite, which allows you to setup your N4903B JBERT bit error ratio tester for performing PCI Express 3.0 jitter tolerance testing under the PCIe 3.0 BASE specification.

The PCI Express electrical performance validation and compliance software performs a wide range of electrical tests as per the PCI Express PCI Express 2.0 and 1.1/1.0a. electrical specifications for add-in cards and motherboard systems as documented in Section 4 of the base specification and Section 4 of the card electromechanical specification.

Tests for PCI Express 3.0 (based on section 4.3.3.10 and 4.3.3.13) are also included to help you test your products against for the next generation of this powerful I/O technology.

In addition to full swing (800 mV) testing, the software also supports testing for low-power, half-swing devices (400 mV) as per the PCI Express Architecture Mobile Graphics Low-Power Addendum to the PCI Express Base Specification Revision 1.0.

Features

The PCI Express electrical test software offers several features to simplify the validation of PCI Express designs:

– PCIe 3.0 measurements for uncorrelated TJ, DJ, and PWJ, pseudo package loss, and preset de-emphasis and preshoot.

– Automated 1.6 M Unit Interval (or greater) testing for highest accuracy when embedding PCIe reference channel and package model losses

– Results consistent with PCI-SIG SigTest software utility

– Support for de-embedding of test fixtures and cables 1

– Test setup wizard for ease-of-use

– Wide range of electrical transmitter and reference clock tests

– PCI-SIG SigTest clock recovery algorithm

– Optional integrated receiver test calibration suite for automated calibration (BASE spec) of your N4903B JBERT 2

– Automated scope measurement setup

– Test results report generation

– Pass/fail margin analysis

– Reference clock phase jitter analysis

– Two-port (explicit clock and data) supported for motherboard signal quality testing

– Support for both full-swing and low-power, half-swing devices.

With the PCI Express electrical test software, you can use the same oscilloscope you use for everyday debugging to perform automated testing and margin analysis based on the PCISIG-specified tests.

PCI Express compliance testing

To pass signal quality testing at a PCI-SIG-sponsored compliance workshop, your product must successfully pass “Gold Suite” testing, based on the PCI-SIG SigTest application. The SigTest application tests your device against the minimum signal-quality performance requirements for PCI. If you are developing receivers and transmitters for add-in boards and system motherboards, the PCI Express electrical test software helps you execute the SigTest tests and additional oscilloscope already completed tests. See the list of tests in Table 3 on page 16 (for 1.1 test coverage).

While SigTest tests provide a good overview of PCI Express electrical signal quality, they address only a small subset of the electrical compliance measurements specified in the PCI-SIG specification. The SigTest application also provides minimal reporting capability with pass/fail indication and measurement values, and has limited debugging capabilities to decipher eye mask violations or excessive jitter.

For PCI Express 3.0 measurements, the software automatically calculates uncorrelated total jitter, uncorrelated deterministic jitter, uncorrelated PWJ necessary for validating new PCIe 3.0 compliant chipsets. For versions of devices compliant with PCI Express 2.0 or earlier, random jitter is also reported for completeness and a voltage margin “eye” diagram is included in the final HTML report. DJ and TJ values are specified in the PCIe 2.0 specification and are required for compliance verification.