How to Test Automotive SerDes Transmit Conformance

+ UXR-Series Oscilloscope

Ensuring interoperability and data integrity of your automotive SerDes designs

Testing automotive SerDes (serializer / deserializer) transmitters requires maintaining data and signal integrity and ensuring the linearity of N-level pulse amplitude modulation (PAM-N) networks. While SerDes standards go a long way to address channel length and higher bandwidth requirements, they introduce new complexities to the overall system implementation, including vertical interference, non-linear distortions in the transmitting system, and interoperability with other vendors.

Validating automotive SerDes transmitters requires ensuring the signals sent are not the cause of impurities at the receiver level. Use an oscilloscope to act as the receiver, then put the device-under-test (DUT) into a series of known states to ensure the signal received is valid. Testing should include crucial measurements such as frequency, distortion, jitter, droop, probability spectral density (PSD), and linearity. Test the DUT according to the test plan specified by standards, such as MIPI A-PHY, ASA, or other proprietary standards.

Automotive SerDes transmit conformance solution

Validating automotive SerDes transmitters requires emphasizing physical layer testing as it gives deterministic evidence of the receiver performance and, thus, the effectiveness of the entire system. The Keysight SerDes transmit conformance solution helps you understand the health of your entire system by validating the connection and characterizing its limits to ensure interoperability with other vendors. The solution's test software lets you automatically configure the UXR oscilloscope for each reference specification and provides informative test results, including margin and statistical analysis. The solution supports MIPI A-PHY, ASA, and proprietary standards as available.

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