64 GBaud bit error ratio tester gains compliance test measurement approval for PCIe standards
Keysight Technologies’ M8040A 64 Gbaud High-performance bit error ratio tester (BERT) has been approved by the PCI-SIG as a compliance test measuring instrument for PCI Express 4.0 (PCIe Gen4) testing at 16 gigatransfers per second (GT/s) and 8GT/s.
As serial bus technologies increase in speed and bandwidth, test equipment vendors are faced with the challenge of providing correspondingly capable tools. The BERT system enables accurate physical-layer design verification of high-speed communication and multigigabit digital interfaces and is the only PCI-SIG approved receiver test BERT for PCIe 4.0 capable of testing PCIe 5.0 (32GT/s) and enables pathfinding (the process of selecting a design choice by evaluating different technical approaches against a set of defined system parameters and goals) for the emerging PCIe 6.0 (64GT/s) speeds.
According to Kailash Narayanan, vice president for Keysight’s commercial communications group, the PCI Express standard is important to Keysight and its customers.
“As the industry looks ahead to PCIe 6.0, we believe that approval of our M8040A for PCIe 4.0 receiver testing will enhance the level of confidence in test tools that can be used today while offering a clear runway to next generation technologies at speeds up to 32Gbaud PAM4,” he says.
The PCI-SIG (originally formed as the Peripheral Component Interconnect Special Interest Group) develops and manages the PCI bus specification, the industry standard for a high-performance I/O interconnect for transferring data between central processing units and peripherals. Currently, the PCI-SIG manages the PCI, PCI-X and PCI Express standards.