Test & Measurement

At this week’s ECOC (European Conference on Optical Communication) in Basel, Switzerland, Keysight and Synopsys demonstrated the industry’s first common electrical interface (CEI) SoC supporting 224Gbits per second.

To accelerate 1.6Tbit per second transceiver designs and pathfinding, Keysight Technologies has introduced 224G Ethernet test products which enable SoC makers to validate next-generation electrical interface technology, said the company, accelerating 1.6Tbit per second transceiver design and pathfinding.

In response to the bandwidth demands in networks and data centres generated b y 5G, AI and IoT, there is a requirement for high speed digital interfaces that support 224Gbits per second, per lane data connection speeds for increased bandwidths and to underpin 1.6Tbit per second interconnect technology, said Keysight. Improved data throughput and efficiency in data centre networks also contribute to reductions in power consumption and cost. Keysight believes it is the only provider of bit error ratio testers (BERTs) capable of generating and analysing 224Gbit per second signals.

This portfolio includes the M8050A BERT, offering 224Gbit per second testing for electrical design and validation of transceiver SoCs used in data centres and networks for transferring large amounts of data at high speeds. It provides signal integrity that enables accurate characterisation of receivers used in next-generation data centre networks and server interfaces, said Keysight. 

Synopsys used the M8050A BERT, M8199 arbitrary waveform generator (AWG) and Infiniium UXR-series oscilloscope to develop and validate 224G serialiser / deserialiser (SerDes) IP designs.

“High-performance computing systems depend on high-speed, low-latency interfaces to process massive amounts of data with minimal power,” said John Koeter, senior vice president of marketing and strategy for the Solutions Group at Synopsys. The high speed Ethernet IP provided used Keysight’s digital interface test to validate the performance of the PHY IP. As a result, designers could meet their design and system-level requirements for high-performance computing, networking and AI SoCs, said Koeter.

http://www.keysight.com

An automotive serialiser / deserialiser (SerDes) receiver (Rx) compliance test has been unveiled by Keysight Technologies. It is able to verify MIPI (mobile industry processor interface) A-PHY devices and helps achieve broadscale interoperability based on the Compliance Test Specification (CTS) requirements.

It was developed in collaboration with BitifEye Digital Test Solutions and Wilder Technologies, with the support of Valens Semiconductor.

Silicon vendors are planning to implement the MIPI A-PHY long-reach physical layer interface for automotive and other surround-sensor applications, including cameras and in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) displays to meet the drive of manufacturers who are continually enhancing vehicles with autonomous functions. These functions should improve safety conditions which has led to the need for data gathered from sensors and cameras to be transmitted accurately, with precision and speed, from any silicon vendor.

Keysight’s Rx compliance test solution recreates a compliant transmitter that generates a controlled distorted signal (worst case) and analyses the impact of the distortions on the receiver’s capability to correctly sample transmitted data. It enables automotive makers and their suppliers, as well as automotive engineers and system integrators, to stress the receiver and validate its performance in the noisy and inherently harsh environment of a car.

“At Keysight, we recognise that it is critical to address the growing market demands for high-speed digital interfaces for next-generation in-vehicle networks,” said Thomas Goetzl, vice president and general manager of Keysight’s Automotive and Energy Solutions business unit.

The Rx compliance test ensures the quality of the digital transmission by measuring the receiver’s ability to recover data from an impaired input signal, with a comprehensive test framework to identify the margin at which a device under test (DUT) is working. There is also a custom fixture that couples the noise to an active link to stress the receiver and accurate and repeatable results with Keysight’s arbitrary waveform generator (AWG) to generate a variety of random and complex noise profiles.

Other features include access to pre-defined noise profiles and all relevant hardware, software and accessories in a single model number, which saves time and money, added Keysight.

There is also automatic report generation in HTML or PDF formats including margin analysis.

BitifEye Digital Test Solutions offers test software which complement Keysight´s product portfolio of integrated and automated application-specific test systems. The partnership has led to what is claimed to be the first solution that can test the receivers of automotive SerDes MIPI A-PHY data links.

“We are excited to engage with Keysight to deliver a new way for the industry to validate receiver devices utilizing MIPI A-PHY,” said Julien Henaut, chief operating officer, BitifEye Digital Test Solutions.

Keysight delivers design and validation test products for software-driven insights and analytics to bring tomorrow’s technology products to market faster across the development lifecycle, in design simulation, prototype validation, automated software testing, manufacturing analysis, and network performance optimisation and visibility in enterprise, service provider and cloud environments. Customers are in the worldwide communications and industrial ecosystems, aerospace and defence, automotive, energy, semiconductor and general electronics markets. 

http://www.keysight.com