The E2960A consists of a brand new set of test tools for analyzing and exercising PCI Express bus protocols. It is a highly responsive system used for debug and bring-up of PCI Express based designs such as drivers, BIOS, add-in cards, motherboards, chips and systems. The platform provides the market´s first full-speed x8, x4 and x1 combined exerciser-analyzer unit for PCI Express, which also allows R&D and QA engineers to effectively validate PCI Express designs. Overall benefits include increased test coverage for higher test quality, reducing the risk of costly recalls and redesigns and faster test times, enabling faster time-to-market.

The key functions of a protocol exerciser are to send and respond to traffic, which is user-controlled by means of a Command Application Programming Interface (CAPI). It can stress all data paths in a system and test corner cases and behavior by inserting errors and protocol violations on each of the respective layers, physical, data link and transactional.

The new graphical user interface (GUI) now offers a flexible approach to control the Exerciser either through an API such as Command Application Interface (CAPI) or Tool Command Language interface, or through the GUI. This option allows very quick test setups with the GUI or more comprehensive test coverage with the API.

The protocol analyzer, including Agilent´s patented dynamic trigger conditions, is the core debug and bring-up test tool for root cause analysis, trouble shooting and performance analysis. It provides non-intrusive monitoring of PCI Express traffic between either an add-in card and a system or between a protocol exerciser and a system.

Features:

• Protocol Exerciser and Protocol Analyzer for bi-directional PCI Express x1, x2, x4 and x8 link width
• Analyzer to Exerciser traffic record and replay
• Protocol Analyzer with a graphical user interface, including sophisticated trigger, search and filter capabilities, traffic overview and packet decoding view
• Protocol Analyzer with patented Dynamic Triggering and storage qualification
• Protocol Exerciser with a graphical user interface, DCOM and Tcl interface
• Protocol Exerciser to generate and respond to sequences of PCI Express packets with error insertion capabilities
• Multi port testing capabilities
• Slot/Interposer and midbus probing solution allowing different probing solutions
• Protocol Checker for Exerciser
• Performance Counter for Exerciser
• In-System-Port Controll for Exerciser
• LAN interface allows remote control and resource sharing
• Field upgradeable