SerialTek

SI-Fi™ PCIe Gen4 Interposers

Together with the new Kodiak™, SerialTek’s Gen4 (16.0 GT/s) PCI Express® (PCIe®) and Non-volatile Memory Express® (NVMe®) interposers with SI-Fi™ allow users to monitor an unprecedented variety of PCIe and NVMe bus traffic with unparalleled power and ease.

Enabled by SerialTek’s proprietary SI-Fi™ technology, users can save hours over legacy approaches requiring interposer calibration.

This technology improves critical test coverage by providing high signal integrity, even over changing conditions, such as link training (LTSSM), Power Management, Hot Plug, Reset, and other tests where the physical link/lane characteristics may change.

Each lane’s analog signal is received at the probe’s differential input and distributed to two separate phase matched differential outputs with a nominal gain of 0dB, allowing the Host and Device signals to pass through the interposer, allowing for real-world PCIe link training and easier set-up of the analyzer and DUT.

SI-Fi™ PCIe Gen4 Interposers continue SerialTek’s TCO approach. With the focus on signal integrity, flexible, low-cost, SFF-8644-based cables connect each interposer to the analyzer. These cables are readily available and rated greater than 20GHz, resulting in uncompromised SI at all PCIe transfer rates.

All sideband signals are passed through the interposer from Root Complex (Host) to Controller (Device), and all are made available to the analyzer for trigger, decode, and analysis.

• SI-Fi™ Interposers require no calibration.
• Supports PCI Express Gen 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0 Accurate capture of PCIe data traffic at line rates including 16.0 GT/s (Gen4), 8.0 GT/s (Gen3), 5.0 GT/s (Gen2), and 2.5 GT/s (Gen1).
• Single U.2 / U.3 interposer supports both single-port and dual-port capture (only one analyzer is needed for dual-port).
• “Passive” tapping to avoid masking, hiding, or “cleaning up” electrical and/or link issues.
• Low-cost, flexible, high-performance cabling for reliable analyzer to interposer connections

Panda iTAP™ Embedded PCIe Analysis

Convenient Access to Embedded PCIe Applications

The Panda appliance conveniently brings together SerialTek’s iTAP™ technology and BusXpert™ software with Broadcom PEA technology to smartly solve the problem of analyzing embedded PCIe links in ICs such as the Broadcom PEX89000 PCI Express Gen 5.0 ExpressFabric Platform. The iTAP software is a specialized “tap” framework that is fully integrated with BusXpert, the feature-rich analysis software developed for the revolutionary Kodiak™ PCIe 5.0 Protocol Analysis System.

With the increasing ubiquity of sophisticated, highly integrated systems employing switches and chip-to-chip interconnects, physical limitations to accessing PCIe traffic can prove quite challenging. With the easy access provided by the Panda appliance and SerialTek’s PCIe software packages, developers are able to quickly set up, capture, decode, and view PCIe trace data captured on-chip by Broadcom’s PCIe Embedded Analyzer (PEA) technology. When used in conjunction with the Kodiak Protocol Analysis System, developers can seamlessly transition between Kodiak’s extremely deep traces and iTAP’s embedded traces from all instances of PEA stations / ports.

Powerful Features

• Advanced BusXpert analysis software with collaborative web UI
• Can be used in conjunction with Kodiak PCIe 5.0 protocol analyzers with the same UI
• Captures TLPs, DLLPs, and Ordered Sets
• 288K capture buffers per station / port
• Synchronized multi-station capture
• Filtering capabilities:
  – Discard TLPs, DLLPs and Ordered Sets
  – Compression of repeating bytes
• Triggering capabilities:
  – Two-level triggering on input trace data
  – Input trigger can be pin-based or routed from internal signals
  – Output trigger can be routed to other trace buffer instances and to a chip output pin

Busxpert Micro II PCIe/NVME Gen 2, 3 Protocol Analyzer

The BusXpert Micro II PCI Express® (PCIe®) analyzer is SerialTek’s third analyzer designed and optimized for equipment manufacturers that are developing storage products and solutions using PCI Express technology. With support for data rates of 2.5 GT/s, 5.0 GT/s (Gen 2) and 8.0 GT/s (Gen 3) and bus widths of x1, x2 and x4, the Micro II provides accurate capture, analysis and deep insight of PCIe traffic at all layers of the protocol stack. It offers the same ease-of-use, multiple display views, powerful triggering, and attractive price points that are

the hallmarks of SerialTek storage protocol products, and adds the benefits of a small form factor and zero calibration.

The BusXpert supports up to 36GB of capture buffer, pre-indexed and compressed trace data, multiple analysis processors, and instant display of the captured data. The BusXpert also features easy-to-use triggering, pre-/post-capture filtering, textual search and sequence search, and many different displays of captured PCI Express traffic. It is available in a variety of configurations to fit specific requirements for buffer size, protocols, and budget.

This SerialTek analyzer supports the PCIe protocol, including all TLP, DLLP, and Ordered Sets, and the NVM Express™ (NVMe) protocol.

PCIe 3 is the latest standard and is fully supported by SpecXpert, as are revisions 1.0a, 1.1 and 2.0 of the specification.

• Accurate capture of all data line rates including 8GT/s, 5 GT/s and 2.5 GT/s
• Decode all PCI Express traffic, including TLP, DLLP, and Ordered Sets
• Automatic, instant decode support for Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe)–saved trace not required!
• Portable and lightweight dedicated appliance; no need to hassle with and waste time swapping blades or modules
• Automatically detect and update the PCIe config space, controller register and NVMe queue information
• Can be used with any third-party PCIe generator

PCIe/NVMe Interposers

PCIe Gen3 Slot/AIC Interposer

SerialTek’s PCIe Gen3 Slot (AIC) Interposers with SI-Fi technology are specially designed test adapters that are physically placed in between the PCIe slot and a PCIe endpoint to intercept and relay a copy of the high-speed signaling and discrete data lines to the PCIe Analysis system in real-time.

PCI Express slots are ubiquitous in ATX or ATX-based form factors in computing, storage, networking, and communication equipment applications. SerialTek’s PCIe Gen3 x4 slot interposer supports analysis of x1, x2, and x4 link-widths, though endpoints up to x16 may be plugged into the interposer. All relevant sidebands, including SMBus from the host or from external / third-party injection or generation tools are supported.

• Compliant with PCI Express 1.x, 2.x and 3.0 specifications.
• Accurate capture of PCIe data traffic at line rates including 8.0 GT/s (Gen3), 5.0 GT/s (Gen2), and 2.5 GT/s (Gen1).
• Next-gen Interposer requires no calibration.
• “Passive” tapping to avoid masking, hiding, or “cleaning up” electrical and/or link issues.
• Low-cost, flexible, high-performance cabling for reliable analyzer to interposer connections.
• Capture of M.2 and U.2 traffic via adapters.

Busxpert Micro II Series SAS/SATA Analyzer

The new SerialTek BusXpert Micro II revolutionizes the analysis of devices and systems utilizing the high speed SAS and SATA storage protocols. With key features found in few other SAS/SATA analyzers the Micro II is a portable, lightweight unit that supports up to 36 GBs of capture buffer, hardware accelerated gigabit Ethernet, pre-indexed and compressed trace data and multiple analysis processors.

This 4 port, 12 Gb/s analyzer is also compatible with slower speeds and protocols. A 2 port model, licensed upgradable to 4 ports, is also available. SATA data rates of 1.5 Gb/s, 3.0 Gb/s, and 6 Gb/s are supported, as are SAS data rates of 3.0 Gb/s, 6.0 Gb/s, and 12.0 Gb/s. It is portable weighing 4.5 lbs or roughly the same as an average notebook computer; but it has the power and capabilities of solutions that are much, much larger. This makes it an ideal tool not only for lab environments but also for field and support engineers.

The analyzer employs next generation high-speed transceivers, providing for accurate and reliable first-time linkup. Two modes of linkup are supported. In addition, the analyzer supports optional user calibration controls to assist linkup under sub-optimal signal integrity conditions.

The software provides for a new and powerful waveform “eye” display. This is a unique capability, typically found on oscilloscopes, that allows for digital signals to be easily observed in a graphic form. The feature permits users to take control over sample rates and display resolution. Eye diagrams are used as an aid in obtaining the optimal signal integrity by graphically showing the effects of varying calibration settings on the received serial data. They may be saved as either a graphical image or a file containing all the data and options needed to reconstruct the eye diagram. Now SAS and SATA engineers have not only the ability to observe the upper layer protocol transactions but also the lower physical layer information in a single compact, portable unit.