Date: 28/11/2008

USB 3.0 physical layer compliance test application from Agilent

Agilent announced a comprehensive solution for testing SuperSpeed USB 3.0 devices to ensure compliance with the newly published standards.

At the first USB 3.0 Developers Conference in San Jose, Calif., Agilent demonstrated its new USB 3.0 transmitter and USB 3.0 receiver compliance test solutions. This demonstration included the industry's first USB 3.0 signal quality test fixture. Agilent's solution will incorporate the final USB 3.0 specification announced by the USB-IF on Nov. 14. USB 3.0, known as "SuperSpeed USB" will deliver 10 times the data transfer rate of USB 2.0 and make power usage more efficient. SuperSpeed USB will be necessary for data-storage devices transferring more than 25 Gbps. Industry experts expect manufacturers to adopt SuperSpeed USB by the end of 2009 and to have consumer products widely available in 2010. However, until the actual silicon is available for testing, no USB solution will be ready for official certification.

Agilent's complete design, simulation and testing solution includes:
Infiniium DSO/DSA91304A 13-GHz oscilloscope for transmitter testing;
Agilent USB 3.0 transmitter compliance test application;
Agilent USB 3.0 test fixtures;
J-BERT N4903A, a high-performance serial BERT with complete jitter tolerance test for characterizing USB 3.0 SuperSpeed serial communication links;
Agilent ADS simulation software for creating and analyzing USB 3.0 channels;
Agilent VNA/PNA network analyzer N5230C-245 for measuring and analyzing USB 3.0 channels.

Additional information about Agilent's USB compliance test solution is available at www.agilent.com/find/N5416A.