Testing solutions for USB4 - Universal Serial Bus 4

Overview

The USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) announced USB4 in March 2019 and released the specification in September 2019. Based on the Thunderbolt 3 protocol, USB4 uses a Type-C connector, which enables bonding of two independent 20 Gb/s links into one logical 40 Gb/s link. USB4 supports other standards through ALT mode. The host implements USB 3.2 at 5G / 10G, USB 2.0, and DisplayPort (DP) and can tunnel USB, DP, and PCIe®. Keysight offers a suite of hardware and software tools to help you design and implement USB4.

Figure 1. Typical USB4 implementation requirements, per USB-IF USB-IF

USB4 has seen significant changes compared with USB 3.2. These are some of the testing differences in the USB4 implementation:

Figure 2 provides a comprehensive overview of hardware and software needed to complete transmitter and receiver tests for USB4 Type-C.

Figure 2. Keysight USB4 Type-C solution matrix

The USB4 Type-C solutions matrix uses the following tools:

• Infiniium UXR Series high-perfornance oscilloscopes
• M8020A J-BERT high-performance BERT
• E5080B ENA vector network analyzer
• D9040USBC USB4 transmitter test software
• N5991U40A USB4 receiver test software
• N7019A USB4 Type-C Active link test fixture
• D9010USBP supports
  • USB4 low-speed sideband
  • power delivery
  • high-speed protocol
  • eUSB2 protocol trigger decode
• E5080B Return Loss software.

Conclusion

Keysight offers a suite of testing solutions that will help you implement your USB4 design, including testing all supported technologies:

• protocol
• USB power delivery
• channel characterization
• sideband testing
• Thunderbolt
• DisplayPort

As described, Keysight offers instrumentation, software, and fixtures for testing and characterizing the entire USB4 Type-C ecosystem.

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