Oscilloscope tools analyse 5Gbit/s interfaces

Article By : Rohde & Schwarz

The R&S RTO2000 oscilloscopes feature 6GHz bandwidth and USB-PD, supporting 5Gbit/s SuperSpeed USB and PCIe 2.0 interfaces.

Electronic circuits today feature fast serial communications interfaces such as USB and PCIe. Testing and debugging circuits need tools that provide comprehensive support for these interfaces. At the embedded world 2017 trade fair in Germany, Rohde & Schwarz has launched its line of T&D options: the R&S RTO2064 oscilloscope test options for various interface standards, and the modular R&S RT-ZM60 broadband probes for contacting the DUT. Rohde & Schwarz also offers a triggering and decoding software options for SuperSpeed USB (USB 3.1 Gen1), PCIe 1.1/2.0 and USB Power Delivery (USB-PD), plus a compliance test option for PCIe 1.1/2.0.

 

Figure 1: The R&S RTO2064 oscilloscope offers 5Gbit/s test options for various interface standards.
 

 

Figure 2: The new test options for the R&S RTO2000 series oscilloscopes with a bandwidth of 6GHz make these instruments ideal for testing fast communications interfaces.
 

Protocol analysis in bit detail

Rohde & Schwarz’s triggering and decoding software options support users looking for faults that occur during SuperSpeed USB, PCIe 2.0 and USB-PD transmission. The triggering options on user-defined protocol prompt events and decode the transmitted serial protocol. This enables the R&S RTO2000 to display additional time- and frequency-domain measurements time-correlated to the protocol trigger event. The cause of a fault is immediately recognisable. Results can be displayed in a table with all protocol details and associated timestamps. The ability to analyse at different protocol levels is another feature that allows developers fast analysis and debugging. For example, users can select between a simple bit view, a symbol view or a specific protocol view with frame start, address and data in order to track down protocol errors to the lowest bit level.

 

Figure 3: A T&D software options for USB 3.1 Gen1.
 

PCIe 1.1/2.0 standard compliance

Rohde & Schwarz has included compliance tests for PCIe 1.1/2.0 which permits automated compliance verification of the physical layer up to 2.5Gbit/s. Software options based on the PCI-SIG standard postprocessing analysis software assess the signal integrity against this standard.

 

Figure 4: An oscilloscope display of PCIe 1.1/2.0 T&D.
 

 

Figure 5: As part of R&S test tools suite, a guided step for Signal Quality test is displayed.
 

The R&S RTO-K61 USB 3.1 Gen1 T&D, R&S RTO-K72 PCIe 1.1/2.0 T&D and R&S RTO-K81 PCIe 1.1/2.0 compliance test software options, as well as the R&S RTE/RTO-K63 USB-PD T&D, are specifically designed for the R&S RTO2000 oscilloscope with 6GHz bandwidth.

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