We are proud to announce a new JTAG-operated embedded instrument for Bit-Error Rate Testing (BERT) of high-speed links on your UltrascalePlus-based products. The lightning-fast QI BERT instrument fits series/mass production scenarios whereas each and every PCBA can be checked for link quality issues using BER Eye diagrams. The latter is especially useful to identify those boards that albeit their correct operation in functional mode, still exhibit the signs of poor signal quality (due to presence of hidden defects).

With this new solution that becomes a part of our Quick Instruments portfolio, a test engineer can easily verify that all multi-gigabit channels on every assembled PCBA are operating correctly at their target speeds. The BERT instrument runs a special test sequence through serial links and checks that every transmitted bit has reached its destination uncorrupted. The instrument performs the test using raw serial data, i.e. not involving any application protocol and with HW/SW error correction mechanisms switched off, thus keeping the correlation between the quality and observed error rates undistorted. Moreover, using QI BERT instrument one can reveal signal quality problems in a matter of seconds - just by an automatic evaluation of measured BER eyes. Both instruments (BERT and BER Eye) are targeted to production environment, and therefore can be integrated into manufacturing tests to be run on every assembled product.

UltrascalePlus series is the latest generation of Xilinx FPGA devices that offers the highest level of performance and incredibly large amount of programmable logic resources. On top of that, these FPGAs have excellent I/O capabilities both in terms of speed and throughput. In particular, UltrascalePlus devices are equipped with dozens of ultra-fast GTY serial transceivers that can operate at the rates up to 32.75 Gb/s, hence providing multi-terabit bandwidth on a single chip.

Quick Instruments is an Embedded Functional Test and Measurement Platform that converts a programmable device such as an FPGA into an embedded tester. The technology helps customers screening defects fast and early. Thanks to the patented embedded instrumentation technology, large in-house Test & Measurement IP library and fully automated test synthesis cloud, QI platform helped numerous businesses in over 20 countries taking care of everyday testing needs as well as challenging quality issues. Find out more on Quick Instruments