February 7, 2006 Santa Clara, CA -- Agilent Technologies has introduced what it calls the industry's first compliance test suite for jitter tolerance testing of serial gigabit receivers up to 12.5 Gbit/sec. The software for the Agilent N4903A high-performance serial BERT [bit error ratio tester] makes the instrument among the most convenient and accurate tools for jitter tolerance compliance testing on the market, according to the company.
The company says the N4903A's compliance test suite incorporates an extensive library of jitter tolerance compliance curves for technologies including PCI Express, Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA), Fibre Channel, fully-buffered DIMM, Common Electrical Interface (CEI), 10-Gbit Ethernet, and small form-factor pluggable (XFP). According to the company, this broad range of compliance eliminates the need to read all standards and to program the test equipment accordingly.
Customizable curves and margins can be added as needed. The compliance test suite automatically sweeps through the compliance measurement so that no equipment programming is necessary. A graphical display shows pass/fail results. According to the company, the N4903A provides all required jitter sources that are calibrated and compliant with the latest serial bus standards, so the prerequisite for compliance testing is met.
"Compliance testing is mandatory for the market success of next-generation serial devices," observes Siegfried Gross, vice president and general manager of Agilent's digital verification solutions division. "With the introduction of the industry's first jitter tolerance compliance test solution, Agilent continues to demonstrate its leadership in providing innovative physical layer test solutions for the computer, storage, and networking markets."
According to the company, the N4903A high-performance serial BERT with the jitter tolerance compliance suite provides the following benefits:
* Quick and accurate jitter tolerance compliance testing with an extensive library of standard and custom curves, adjustable margins, automated parameter sweep, and a graphical pass/fail result display with print/save function for documenting the test results easily.
* Built-in, calibrated, automated and compliant jitter-tolerance testing with sources for periodic jitter, random jitter, bounded uncorrelated jitter, and both intersymbol and sinusoidal interference. This enables compliant jitter tolerance measurements.
* Immediate eye analysis - provided on all N4903As - with one-screen eye diagrams, eye contour lines, eye mask, and pulse parameter measurements, eliminating the need to check for a valid signal with a scope before testing.
* Simplified analysis of complex devices by the new pattern capture capability on all N4903As.
* Upgradeability from the existing N4903A BERT platform, protecting customer investment.
The jitter tolerance compliance suite for the Agilent N4903A is available now, priced at $9,975.