Anritsu Announces World-First PCI Express Test Solution with Multivendor Oscilloscope Support

Anritsu Corporation, a global provider of innovative test and measurement solutions for advanced and converged networks, announces that it is exhibiting its Signal Quality Analyzer-R MP1900A series and Compliance Test Solution developed in collaboration with Granite River Labs (GRL) and Teledyne LeCroy at the PCI-SIG Developers Conference 2018 starting June 5^th in the USA.

The test solution supports both PCI Express transmitter and receiver tests using automation software for the MP1900A. It also enables connection of customers’ oscilloscopes with the MP1900A by supporting real-time oscilloscopes from the three main manufacturers, permitting automation of complex receiver tests required for evaluating devices in accordance with the PCI Express standards. Automated testing lightens the workload burden on test engineers by cutting the previous 10 hours required for manual testing to almost no time.

The next PCI Express Gen5 standard increases the transmission speed from 16 to 32 GT/s, and is expected to be adopted for use as the internal interface in equipment such as transmission devices, servers and storage used mainly in data centers. Due to the increased speed, customers need to either upgrade or replace both their bit error rate tester (BERT) and oscilloscopes while taking items such as performance and price into consideration.

To solve this problem and help hold-down capital expenditure by eliminating costly upgrades and equipment replacement., Anritsu has partnered with GRL and Teledyne LeCroy to develop a PCI Express test solution based on the combination of automation software supporting BERT measurements up to PCI Express Gen5 transmission speeds using Anritsu’s MP1900A with excellent basic performance (low intrinsic jitter/noise, high input sensitivity, etc.) and customers’ own high-quality oscilloscopes.

The MP1900A is a wideband BERT with high-quality waveforms and high input sensitivity to implement high-reproducibility tests for evaluating not only PCI Express devices but also high-speed serial devices, such as 400 GbE. The MP1900A BERT has excellent cost-performance due to its easy expandability supporting next-generation standards, including PCI Express Gen5 and PAM.