Faster PCIe® 5.0 Transmitter Validation and Compliance
Solution Briefs
Introduction
The Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe®) 5.0 specification defines the high-speed serial I/O bus, which connects a computer’s motherboard and hardware peripherals, such as graphics cards and data storage devices. PCIe 5.0 doubles the data bit rate of PCIe 4.0 up to 32 GT/s. The PCIe 5.0 standard encompasses the Base specification for chip-level development and the card electromechanical (CEM) specification for the main circuit board and add-in cards
Use Case Summary
Digital developers need to perform physical layer signal quality and transmitter equalization testing on their PCIe 5.0 transmitters to reach PCI-SIG®-approved compliance. Physical layer transmitter testing involves sending signals from the device to a real-time oscilloscope, which receives the signals and analyzes their eye height, jitter, and other key parameters
The PCIe 5.0 Base and CEM specifications are complex and contain many test requirements to ensure compliance to the minimum signal quality performance requirements. The PCI SigTest provides minimal reporting capability and only limited debugging capabilities
Setting up the oscilloscope, loading the setup files, performing the many required electrical performance tests, and analyzing the results is time-consuming and difficult without a deep understanding of the PCIe 5.0 specifications
Solution Overview
The Keysight PCIe 5.0 transmitter compliance test solution solves these issues by automating all necessary transmitter compliance testing. The automated test engine walks validation engineers through the steps required to define, set up, and perform the tests in an accurate, consistent, and repeatable manner. Developers can test their devices for compliance or perform deeper root-cause analysis on the device with the software’s robust debugging tool
Summary
• PCIe 5.0 doubles the data rate from the prior generation of the popular I/O standard
• Chipsets, motherboards, and peripherals must all pass PCI-SIG transmitter compliance interoperability tests.
• Keysight’s automated PCIe 5.0 transmitter compliance solution automates Base and CEM specification tests.