Tektronix: PCIe 4.0 Test Solution Including Support for 16 GT/s Data Rates

Tektronix, Inc. announced a series of enhancements to its suite of PCIe test solutions including support for the 16GT/s data rate and the industry’s first automated transmitter and receiver test solutions supporting the PCIe 4.0 architecture.

With the faster data rates for PCIe 4.0 technology come new test challenges such as major increases in channel loss, tightening of the total jitter budget and more complex link training and timing requirements. As design margins shrink, accurate and standard-specific measurement solutions play a vital role in debug, design verification and interoperability testing. All of these needs are fully met by the latest company’s test solutions for PCIe 4.0 and 3.0 in conjunction with DPO70000SX high performance oscilloscopes.

“As important industry specifications such as PCIe evolve over time, it’s crucial that our test and measurement tools keep pace,” said Brian Reich, GM, performance oscilloscopes, Tektronix. “Offering unmatched accuracy and scalability, DPO70000SX oscilloscopes along with the enhancements to our PCIe solutions enable our customers to debug and verify compliance to the latest versions of the PCIe specification while dramatically reducing compliance test times and boosting productivity.“

PCIe 4.0 transmitter testing
Option PCE4 for firm’s DPO/DPS70000SX and DPO/MSO70000DX high performance oscilloscopes provides new transmitter (Tx) measurements specific to the new PCIe 4.0 Base Specification including the 100MHz reference clock, with its picosecond jitter requirements, used in all four generations of PCIe: 2.5, 5.0, 8.0 and 16.0GT/s. Other enhancements include support for the new U.2 form factor (formerly called SFF-8639) and additional optimizations to reduce the overall test time by about 30%. These same capabilities are also available as enhancements for Option PCE3, solution for PCIe 3.0 technology.

PCIe 4.0 receiver testing
The company offers support for PCIe 4.0 and PCIe 3.1a Base Specification receiver testing. The solutions automate firm’s BERTScope bit error rate testers and firm’s performance real-time oscilloscopes to calibrate stressed eye openings and test Rx conformance and jitter tolerance. Following industry-standard methodology, these solutions, offered in cooperation with partner Granite River Labs, Inc., provide a simple user interface to automate complex PCIe testing and reduce equipment calibration time. The solutions also support looping through a variety of timing and voltage pa,eters, using ranges defined by the user, to create two-dimensional result plots.

Industry validation
The PCIe Base Specification, Revision 4.0, Version 0.7, is quite complex, exceeding 1,000 pages, making it challenging for test engineers to quickly come up to speed. The company works with industry organizations such as PCI-SIG to help translate industry specification test requirements into easy-to-use turnkey test solutions that offer clear and concise characterization reports.

DPO70000SX meets 4th Gen performance requirements
As engineering teams prepare for next generation serial standards in the growing cloud computing and storage segments, they need a measurement platform with consistent and precise measurement for the high data rate signaling schemes used in PCIe 4.0 and other standards.

The DPO70000SX, firm’s latest oscilloscope family, offers a number of advantages for 4th generation serial buses compared to previous generation oscilloscopes, including:

• High bandwidth, low noise ATI channels for the best signal fidelity and widest measurement margins

• A flexible architecture with room to grow, allowing units to be configured at the customer site from 23 GHz to 70 GHz with minimal downtime

• Industry-best triggering with 25 GHz edge trigger bandwidth to easily capture the fastest signals

• High-precision time base delivering extremely accurate timing and jitter measurements on today’s fastest standards

• An integrated counter/timer that enables high precision timing measurements to characterize designs and debug problems

The PCIe 4.0 transmitter test solution will be available in July. The receiver test solutions and updated PCIe 3.0 solutions are available.

Pricing starts at $7,290.

Free trial licenses are available.