Tektronix TLA7SA16 and TLA7SA08 logic protocol analyser modules

Tektronix has announced a test solution for PCI Express 3.0, the next-generation PCIe specification, spanning protocol to physical analysis in a single tool.

The TLA7SA16 and TLA7SA08 logic protocol analyser modules, bus support software and probes combine to give PCIe 3.0 developers a view of system behaviour, starting with protocol analysis and working down to the physical layer to debug the root cause of elusive problems.

The analyser capabilities include flexible, integrated data views for analysing and displaying protocol traffic flow correlated with physical layer events.

Logic analyser capabilities include a wide range of probing options, triggering and time-correlated waveform and disassembled listing data displays of raw symbols and lane data.

The PCIe solution expands the TLA7000 series high-performance logic analyser family and works with TLA7000 mainframes including TLA7012 portable and TLA7016 benchtop models.

A single transaction window gives views of protocol behaviour at the packet and transaction level interspersed with physical layer activity, while the listing window shows packet details at the symbol level by lane.

The modules provide x8 and x4 lane support with support for 8.0 GTs acquisition rates and support for PCI Express link widths from x1 to x16.

The modules are fully compatible with previous generation PCI Express specifications. They track changes in link width, link speed, bus power state changes and include a trigger state machine that spans all layers of the protocol.

Up to 16 GB deep memory (for x16 link) increases the chances of capturing both an error and the fault that caused that error. To make maximum use of memory, users can store everything on the bus or use real-time hardware filtering and conditional storage to store selected transactions over an 11-day period.