Benefits

PCI Express electrical test software benefits

The PCI Express electrical test software saves you time by setting the stage for automatic

execution of PCI Express electrical tests, including JBERT jitter stress calibration (optional).

Part of the difficulty of performing electrical tests for PCI Express is hooking up the

oscilloscope, loading the proper setup files, and then analyzing the measured results by

comparing them to limits published in the specification. The PCI Express electrical test

software does much of this work for you. In addition, if you discover a problem with your device,

robust debug tools are available to aid in root-cause analysis. These debug tools are provided

by the Keysight E2688A high-speed serial data analysis software, which you must install on

your oscilloscope to use the PCI Express electrical test software.

The software also now has an integrated interface for controlling the InfiniiSim Waveform

Transformation Toolset for de-embedding of test fixtures. Introduced with PCIe 2.0, de-

embedding of test fixtures utilizes S-parameters as input to create a de-embed model that

helps to restore high frequency signal content that is often lost or significantly attenuated

by test fixtures and cables. This can help to recover significant jitter margin normally lost to

fixtures used in a test setup.

The software can be purchased with an optional test suite for performing the calibration of your

Keysight JBERT (B) bit error ratio tester for stressed eye receiver testing for PCIe 3.0 silicon.

This helps ensure consistent run-to-run setup of the instrumentation, saving you time and

providing consistent and accurate receive test results.

The PCI Express electrical test software offers many more electrical tests than the SigTest

application. Unlike the SigTest application, the PCI Express electrical test software

automatically configures the oscilloscope for each test, and it provides an informative results

report that includes margin analysis indicating how close your product is to passing or failing

a particular test assertion. Table 1 shows a side-by-side comparison of the capabilities of

the SigTest application and the Keysight PCI Express electrical test software. A list of the

measurements made by the PCI Express electrical test software can be found in Table 3, (Table

3 contains comparison of SigTest vs. Keysight).

Table 1. Comparison of capabilities of the Keysight PCI Express electrical test software and the PCI-SIG

SigTest application

Capability

Keysight PCI Express software

PCI-SIG SigTest

Support for PCIe 3.0

BASE Spec

N/A

Integrated de-embedding support

Yes (InfiniiSim waveform transformation toolset required) No

Number of measurement assertions

16+

4

Support for PCIe 1.0a, 1.1, 2.0

Yes

Yes

Reference clock tests

10 (1.1)

Automated oscilloscope setup for each measurement

Yes, guided

No, single setup

Measurement results

Pass/fail with margin analysis

Pass/fail with measured value

CEM based measurement methodology

Yes

Yes

Clock recovery method

PCI-SIG SigTest or 1st/2nd order PLL

PCI-SIG SigTest

Brick wall filter (2.0 testing)

Yes

Yes

Custom HTML report generation

Yes

No

Support for low power device

Yes

No

Selectable number of tests performed

Yes

No

Multi-trial run support

Yes

No

Debug mode for “what if” analysis

Yes

No

Compliance test boards supported

CBB1, CBB2, CLB1, CLB2

CBB1, CBB2, CLB1, CLB2

1. PCI-Sig offers a separate utility (Clock_Jitter) for analyzing reference clock phase jitter.