Agilent intros 28 Gb/s multiplexer for J-BERT, ParBERT

SANTA CLARA, USA: Agilent Technologies Inc. announced the N4876A 2:1 Multiplexer, extending the generator data rate of the J-BERT N4903B and ParBERT 81250A up to 28 Gb/s.

Design and test engineers in the semiconductor, communications, storage, and computing industries now can accurately characterize the next generation of serial interfaces to optimize their design margins. The first public showing of the N4876A is January 20 at the Fiber Optics Expo 2010, Agilent Booth EAST 1-43.

New SERDES physical interconnects, electrical interconnects in backplanes, and communication or storage networks will operate at data rates far beyond 12.5 Gb/s. For example, the Optical Internetworking Forum defined that Common Electrical I/O backplanes operate at data rates between 19.9 and 28 Gb/s; IEEE 802.3ba, 100GBASE-LR4, and -ER4 are operating at 25.78125 Gb/s; and 32x Fibre Channel is expected to operate at 28.05 Gb/s.

Designing and characterizing the physical layer performance of receivers and transmitters for these bit rates will require new test equipment capabilities. Agilent’s 2:1 Multiplexer doubles the pattern generator data rate by multiplexing two generator channels. The Multiplexer extends the variable generator data rate of J-BERT N4903B up to 28.4 Gb/s and of ParBERT 81250A up to 27.0 Gb/s. To enable multiplexing on J-BERT, a second channel option of N4903B is available.

The Multiplexer allows accurate characterization by providing excellent output signal performance with variable output amplitudes up to 1.8 Vpp; transition times of less than 20 ps (20%-80%); and intrinsic jitter of less than 1 ps rms. However, for jitter tolerance testing of receivers, the Multiplexer is transparent to jitter coming from J-BERT or ParBERT.

When used together with the Agilent 86100C Infiniium DCA-J oscilloscope, the Agilent BERTs with the 28 Gb/s Multiplexer provides the most accurate characterization, enabling transmitter quality and receiver robustness.

“We are very proud to expand the industry’s leading BERT solutions to the next speed class,” said Jürgen Beck, general manager of Agilent’s Digital Photonic Test product line. “By expanding the data rate range of our BERTs up to 28 Gb/s, we offer R&D and validation teams an affordable upgrade path without compromising our world-class performance. We are committed to enable R&D teams release the next generation of robust high-speed digital interfaces for the communication, storage and computer industry.”