Teledyne LeCroy SFF-8639 Dual Port Interposer

Teledyne LeCroy, Inc., in protocol test solutions, announced the availability of an SFF-8639 interposer card for analysis of dual SSDs based on PCIe protocol.

The card, used with Summit Protocol Analyzers, enables PCIe bus traffic between a host backplane and dual port SSD device to be monitored, captured, and recorded for protocol analysis. The SFF-8639 dual port interposer supports PCIe host interfaces such as NMVe and SCSI Express (SOP/PQI), protocols at data rates from 2.5 GT/s up to 8 GT/s and lane widths of x2 per port.

"Earlier this year, Teledyne LeCroy introduced the SFF-8639 Single Port Interposer for early adopters who were using this new type connector on PCIe based SSDs and systems. Dual port SSD system developers needed the same ease of connectivity and reliable probing for their test set ups," said John Wiedemeier, product marketing manager in the protocol solutions group, Teledyne LeCroy. "The new SFF-8639 dual port interposer will support SSD monitoring for each individual A or B port or when both ports are active simultaneously as in a dual port mode configuration test set up."

"Storage developers who are designing high reliability and performance systems are looking to employ the features of NVM Express in mission critical server systems," said Jim Pappas, director of technology initiatives, Intel Corporation. "The NVM Express community requires robust protocol analysis tools, and Intel is delighted to see Teledyne LeCroy developing products to support NVMe enterprise storage systems."

The SFF-8639 dual port interposer provides connectivity and monitoring capability for dual ported SSDs targeted at enterprise storage equipment that use the SFF-8639 connector. Dual ported SSDs provide two separate data paths providing higher performance and greater data redundancy for enterprise storage environments. The SFF-8639 can be used with 2-1/2" or 3" sized drives. To use this interposer, the drive is inserted into a drive tray on the interposer that supports a mechanical and electrical connection to a SFF-8639 connector. The interposer taps all PCIe protocol traffic between the host backplane and the storage device and records it on two PCIe protocol analyzers with each port data time synchronized, where protocol issues and performance metrics can be further analyzed and debugged.

"The storage industry looks to SCSI Express technology to address the needs of higher performance, data availability and solid reliability required by its customers in building its next generation of storage systems," said Martin Czekalski, president of the SCSI Trade Association and interface architecture initiatives manager, Seagate Technology LLC. "Companies like Teledyne LeCroy have supported the SCSI Express community with both protocol analysis and test tools. The new SFF-8639 dual port interposer will make it possible to accurately monitor both data port paths simultaneously during system development and interoperability test."

Three years ago, Teledyne LeCroy introduced a PCIe protocol analyzer with NVMe decoding functionality. Since that time it has added decoding for SCSI Express (SOP/PQI) and SATA Express (AHCI/PCIe). Integrating all three PCIe SSD technologies into a single protocol analyzer gives developers versatile tools that can show essential details regarding proper data transmission and bus performance. These tools have been at the center of much of the PCIe SSD interoperability testing that has occurred over the last few years.                                             

The SFF-8639 Dual Port Interposer is available to order.