N5410A Fibre Channel Compliance Application for Infiniium Series Oscilloscopes

Introduction

The Keysight Technologies, Inc. N5410A Fibre Channel Compliance application for Infiniium Series Oscilloscopes provides you with a fast and easy way to characterize and evaluate the signal integrity of your Fibre Channel electrical measurements. Supporting FC4, FC2, and FC1 speeds, the N5410A allows you to specify the measurement point at which you are probing your signal (beta, delta, and gamma). The tests performed by the N5410A are based on the FC-PH (ANSI X3.230-1994) and FC-PH-2 Fibre Channel - Physical and Signaling Interface specification. Test methodologies used are based on the Methodologies for Jitter and Signal Quality Specification (MJSQ).

Key features:

The N5410A Fibre Channel Compliance application software offers several features to simplify the validation of Fibre Channel designs:

• Easy-to-use graphical test selection and setup
• Supports 4.250, 2.125, and 1.0625‑Gb/s speeds
• Supports testing at Beta, Delta, and Gamma compliance points
• Automatic HTML report generation
• RJ/DJ jitter separation analysis at 10^-12 BER
• Physical layer measurements for rise/fall time, jitter, differential voltage, and eye mask
• Debug mode allows changes in test parameters giving you better insight into problems

With the tremendous increase in data storage associated with the growth of the Internet, the domi­nance of Fibre Channel as the de-facto standard technology used in storage area networks is well accepted and sees continued growth. The tremendous increase of data traffic has fueled the need for higher speed networking components such as HBAs and systems. As a result, ensuring signal integrity of network systems and components by testing against industry standards has never been more im­portant. As Fibre Channel moves forward with speeds of 4.25 and 8.5 Gb/s signal integrity validation becomes and an important consideration for ensuring interoperability and reliability between Fibre Channel devices.

Fibre Channel (FC) is a protocol used to transfer data between components that make up storage area networks such as redundant array of inexpensive disks (RAID) systems, just a bunch of disks (JBODs), workstations and servers.

A key component of a SAN system is the Fibre Channel host bus adapter or HBA. This is typically part of a server and communicates with the server over an internal PCI, PCI-X, or PCI Express bus interface. Typically an HBA is capable of generating compliance test patterns such as CRPAT, CJTPAT and SPAT as well as IDLE patterns. The compliance patterns contain low frequency patterns (long and short runs of 0’s and 1’s) as well as composite patterns as described in the MJSQ standard. These patterns are used because they stress the clock data recovery unit in different ways. For example, the high and low transition density patterns are used to generate data dependent jitter.

The Keysight N5410A Fibre Channel Compliance application utilizes these patterns to perform electrical signal quality analysis of your Fibre Channel device, be it an HBA, switch or disk drive. You will need access to your own utility software or that provided by your HBA chipset manufacturer to control you HBA or disk drive device so that the proper signal is being repetitively transmitted for testing.

Easy-to-use graphical test selection and setup

The Keysight N5410A supports FC1, FC2, and FC4 speeds and prompts you for appropriate test point coverage of defined beta, delta, and gamma test points.

To configure the tests you wish to perform, simply select the appropriate test speed and test point in the N5410A’s Set Up window as shown in Figure 2.

Once you pick the speeds and test points you want to test the next step is to select the actual tests you want performed, as shown in Figure 3. How you connect the oscilloscope to yourdevice is a critical step in achieving accurate and repeatable results. Often, the choice available to you will require the use of probed connections. These can be ideally made with the Keysight InfiniiMax series of differential, solder-in probes. In addition, the N5410A also supports connections via coaxial SMA where you can use two oscilloscope channels to analyze one differential signal. To configure the scope with your preferred probing method, use the Configure window to make your selections (Figure 4).

Once you have chosen the tests to be performed and have properly configured the scope with the proper channel setup, etc., you can get connection assistance from the Connect window as shown in Figure 5.

With your tests properly configured you are ready to press the Run Tests button and in doing so the N5410A will initialize the oscilloscope and begin the automated testing of your Fibre Channel target. The tests performed by the N5410A are electrical tests and are dependent upon your target being able to generate a repeating pattern such as a CJTPAT (compliance jitter test pattern). As target and target configurations vary from manufacturer to manufacturer you should contact you Fibre Channel chipset manufacturer for test setup details that will cause your device to output a compliant, repeating pattern.

You can also use the Keysight N5410A Fibre Channel Compliance application to automatically generate a more de­tailed HTML report. This report can be shared with your team members and other vendors and includes screen shot captures of the test results in addition to actual measurements taken during the testing.

Mask test results and jitter test results are also included in your HTML sum­mary report.

Oscilloscope compatibility

The Keysight N5410A Fibre Channel Compliance application is compatible with Keysight 80000 and 54850 Series oscil­loscopes with operating software revision A.04.21 or higher and 90000 and 90000 X-Series oscilloscopes revision A.02.10 or higher.