Teledyne LeCroy PeRT3 Eagle Systems - Manual (Page 5)

PeRT 3 Eagle User Manual Version 1.6
LeCroy Corporation
1
Chapter 1: Overview
The LeCroy PeRT 3 Eagle Test System is a new tool for testing of transceivers and other
serial data communication devices and systems. Verifying device performance to current
serial data standards normally requires multiple tools and multiple test setups, in order to
test the devices over the entire range of requirements, from signal quality and BER
testing through to protocol level error rate verification. With the LeCroy PeRT
3 Eagle, this
entire process can be accomplished quickly and easily, using a single tool and a single
experimental setup, on multiple lanes of a serial communication link.
The PeRT
3
Eagle System is the first “protocol enabled” transceiver tester, allowing the
system to run not only electrical testing and error ratio testing, but also to control the
device under test during test operation. This allows further testing under live traffic
conditions since the PeRT
3 Eagle can communicate directly with the device, generating
actual traffic to exercise the device, which then can be used to measure protocol-level
error ratios.
PeRT
3
stands for Protocol enabled Receiver and Transmitter Tolerance Tester.
The PeRT 3 Eagle combines the electrical test properties of jitter testers, the bit error ratio
testing of BERTs, and the high level protocol packet error ratio testing of protocol
exercisers. All of this is accomplished with a single system and single setup.
The PeRT 3 Eagle System has an
integrated design, combining
digital electronics and signal
processing with an analog front
end. The PeRT
3 Eagle digital
subsystem provides
programmability, protocol
awareness, and digital test pattern
generation. The analog front end
provides advanced high quality
signal generation with precise
timing control, and the ability to produce a controlled signal waveform with
user-controlled jitter levels, amplitude modulation and other electrical stress generation.
The analog front end superimposes these signal impairments on the outgoing signal to
exercise and test the receiver channel of the device under test.
The PeRT
3
Eagle System provides the ability to control and modulate the outgoing test
signal. Test capabilities include modulation of clock noise and jitter, signal shaping (such
as amplitude control, rise/fall generation), pre- and de-emphasis, and also the ability to
monitor the signal quality of the traffic returned from the test device.
The “protocol-enabled” capabilities of the PeRT 3 Eagle also allow the system to manage
protocol-specific issues that confuse less sophisticated test systems. An example is the
resynchronization of clocks in SATA systems through the use of the ALIGN primitives.
The PeRT
3
Eagle can monitor and record protocol-level errors such as CRC errors, and
protocol-specific errors such as R_ERR in SATA.