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Logic-analyser modules for 5-Gbit/sec PCI Express 2.0

Tektronix has added analysis modules for PCI Express 1.0 and 2.0 signals to its range of options for the TLA7000 series logic analysers. TLA7S10 and S08 analysers capture signals at the higher 5-Gbit/sec speeds, verify power management and provide crossbus analysis with—Tektronix says—detailed PCIe protocol information. However, the company differentiates the products from “pure” protocol analysers in that they are true logic analysers. In PCIe 2.0, transmission speed changes instantaneously from 2.5 to 5 Gbit/sec; any lane that is not carrying data shuts down completely to a zeropower state to reduce power demand. The new modules can track dynamic link speed changes and can re-synchronise quickly with a lane as it powers up, needing no more than 12 FTS (fast-training-sequence) packets to do so. The analysers come in 8- or 16-channel widths and are scalable—they fit both the stand-alone instrument and the rack-mount versions of the 7000 mainframe. Memory depth is 32 Msymbols per channel, and link-width support covers
1,
4,
8 and
16, bi-directions. The analyser time-stamps acquisitions with a 54-bit code to a resolution of 25 psec. This solution, Tek says, concentrates on the physical and logic sub-block layers of the PCIe architecture. Physical probing is therefore of critical importance, and the analysers come with a set of active probes that mate to printed-board surface contact points to permit both midbus and interposerstyle signal probing.

Within the TLA7000 architecture, you can also correlate the data you gather from PCI Express with data you collect from other—for example, system- memory—buses in what Tek terms “cross-bus probing”. You can also import realtime signal-waveform measurements from one of the company’s high-speed digital oscilloscopes and view the result in a time-correlated display on a single screen. The analysers cost €47,600 upwards; probe sets (midbus) begin at €13,900.

Tektronix, www.tektronix.com.