SerialTek Introduces PCIe 6.0-Ready OCP 3.0 NIC and EDSFF Interposer

SerialTek LLC announced a modular, calibration-free interposer supporting OCP 3.0 NIC and EDSFF form factors.

The interposer is compatible with current-gen PCIe 5.0 and is designed to support PCIe 6.0 PAM4 modulation at 64GT/s and the company’s future PCIe 6.0 protocol analyzers, allowing customers to invest in future-proofed solutions.

Importantly, this interposer features the industry’s 1st integrated power analysis functionality, powered by a compact module from Quarch Technology Ltd, a provider of automated test solutions for storage, networking, and telecom industries. The power analysis module provides high-accuracy measurements of voltage, current, and power, eliminating the need for bulky current probes/oscilloscopes or DC power analyzers.

PCIe interposers are complex devices designed to be inserted non-intrusively between PCIe system components that can operate over a variety of connectivity standards, and to interface from that system to a PCIe protocol analyzer. They use SI-Fi, a proprietary probing technology that eliminates the need for hours-long calibration sequences, preserves the original signal quality of the link, and enables real-world PCIe link training debug.

“SerialTek has long been a leader in the storage and networking marketplaces, so we understand the significant analysis requirements of our customers who are developing and deploying CXL devices based on OCP and EDSFF standards,” said Paul Mutschler, CEO. “This multi-form factor interposer with integrated power analysis provides a versatile, powerful solution for PCIe 5.0 and CXL analysis tasks today, and for tomorrow, built-in support for PCIe 6.0. Put simply, we are delivering performance and economy on multiple fronts: 1 tool, multiple form factors and multiple PCIe generations.”

Integrated power analysis and monitoring is critical complement to protocol analysis
The integration of the Quarch power analysis and monitoring module provides tracking of bus and device electricals without the need to employ an added fixture, which can adversely impact signal integrity and affect link-up performance. This field-proven module is calibrated to 100µA, provides a 4µs sampling rate, and delivers accuracies. With voltage, current, and power measurements integrated with the SerialTek protocol trace, along with the capture of sideband assertions, users get comprehensive, clear, and critical visibility on power consumption vs. data throughput characteristics and excellent tracking of always-important power management link states.

“Quarch power products have become the industry standard for testing storage devices and indeed our capabilities helped inform the development of the OCP power testing specs,” said Andy Norrie, operations director, Quarch. “The addition of our power analysis technology to SerialTek’s Kodiak platform is exciting to see and will be a great benefit to the engineers using it.“

Improved and expanded testing capabilities for CXL engineers
SerialTek’s Kodiak Protocol Analysis system supports CXL, an industry-standard cache-coherent interconnect for processors, memory expansion, and accelerators that enables data-intensive applications such as artificial intelligence to access memory more efficiently and at lower latencies. The OCP/EDSFF interposer is compatible with new and upcoming CPU platforms from Intel and AMD that support CXL, as well as future ARM CPUs.

Availability and configurations
This interposer supports lane widths of x16 for OCP 3.0 NIC and x8 for EDSFF and is available from the company and its authorized distributors.

These interposers can be purchased in the following configurations (requires QTL2312 Power Analysis Module from Quarch):