Accurate PCI Express® 3.0 Receiver Characterization

Key features required for PCIe 3.0 receiver test:

• Automated stress calibration software
• Emulation of PCIe 3.0 calibration channels
• Injection of PCIe 3.0 compliant sinusoidal interference (S.I.)
• Generation of two-tone periodic jitter with jitter sweep, random jitter
• Stressed sensitivity and jitter tolerance test
• Pre- and post-cursor de-emphasis
• Link training suite based on J-BERT's pattern sequencer
   

Get Ready for PCI Express 3.0 Receiver Characterization

To learn more about Agilent offering for testing PCI Express please click here.

Accurate PCI Express 3.0 Receiver Characterization

In 2010 the base specification for the PCI Express 3.0 interface was released by the PCI-SIG ®.
The transmission rate of 8 GT/s causes significant challenges for the design and test of ASICs, chips and boards.
Receiver testing is normative now, while in the past it was just informative.
Agilent offers a test set for accurate characterization of PCI Express 3.0 receiver ports for R&D and validation test.

What are the Key Challenges of PCI Express 3.0 Receiver Test?

Transmitting 8 GT/s over traditional PC board traces causes significant signal degradations. The receiver test ensures that the receiver under test can detect bits properly (at a BER level of 10-12) at worst-case stress conditions. For PCI Express 3.0 receiver test a stressed voltage eye and a stressed jitter eye test is defined by the base specification. The test challenges include optimizing transmit and receive equalization with 3 taps, emulating three different lengths of calibration channels, and device link training with 128/130 bit coded pattern sequences, and specific periodic and random jitter conditions. However, the most challenging requirement is to implement the new procedure for calibrating PCI Express 3.0 compliant stress conditions as a receiver would see them after applied equalization. This procedure requires post-processing of signals captured at an accessible test point.

What does Agilent offer?

Agilent's complete and accurate receiver test solution is based on the J-BERT N4903B high-performance serial BERT, the N4916B de-emphasis signal converter, the 81150A/81160A pulse function arbitrary noise generator, an Infiniium 90000 X-Series high-performance oscilloscope, new accessories and new N5990A test automation software.

Test set-up description:

• J-BERT N4903B pattern generator provides built-in calibrated jitter and differential-mode Sinusoidal Interference (S.I.) sources, ref. clock and Spread Spectrum Clocking (SSC). Error detector with built-in Clock Data Recovery (CDR).
• N4916B adds pre- and post-cursor de-emphasis (it is transparent to jitter from J-BERT and tolerates non-balanced patterns)
• 81150A/60A source used for adding 120 MHz common mode S.I.
• N4915A-014 offers PCI Express 3.0 compliant calibration channels and combiners
• N5990A test automation software provides PCI Express 3.0 automated stress calibration, RX tests and link training suite

Key benefits include:

• Accurate and repeatable receiver test results are possible by the new stress calibration software, adjustable pre-and post-cursor de-emphasis, J-BERT’s built-in PCIe 3.0 compliant jitter and sinusoidal interference sources, new SJ-sweep functionality and new PCIe 3.0 compliant calibration channels
• Higher R&D efficiency by the unique stress calibration software (based on seasim software) and the link training suite which controls J-BERT's pattern sequencer to bring the device under test into loop back mode easily
• Lower investment by using Agilent instrumentation for testing multiple gigabit bus interfaces, such as USB3, SATA, QPI and Hypertransport

Recommended Agilent Receiver Test Setup:

• J-BERT N4903B high-performance serial BERT. Recommended configuration for PCIe 3.0
  
  - 12.5 G J-BERT with options C13, J10, J11, J20
  
  - SJ-sweep - free software update
• N4915A-014 PCIe 3.0 calibration channels
• N4916B de-emphasis signal generator
• 81150A or 81160A pulse function arbitrary noise generator
• N5990A test automation software, possible options:
  
  - Opt.101 PCIe receiver test including stress calibration
  
  - Opt.301 PCIe 3.0 link training suite
  
  - Opt.011 Upgrade of Opt.101 to current revision

• 90000A series or 90000 X-series oscilloscopes 

PCI-SIG, PCI Express and PCIe are registered trademarks of PCI-SIG