Automotive test suite verifies MIPI A-PHY, says Keysight
An automotive serialiser / deserialiser (SerDes) receiver (Rx) compliance test has been unveiled by Keysight Technologies. It is able to verify MIPI (mobile industry processor interface) A-PHY devices and helps achieve broadscale interoperability based on the Compliance Test Specification (CTS) requirements.
It was developed in collaboration with BitifEye Digital Test Solutions and Wilder Technologies, with the support of Valens Semiconductor.
Silicon vendors are planning to implement the MIPI A-PHY long-reach physical layer interface for automotive and other surround-sensor applications, including cameras and in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) displays to meet the drive of manufacturers who are continually enhancing vehicles with autonomous functions. These functions should improve safety conditions which has led to the need for data gathered from sensors and cameras to be transmitted accurately, with precision and speed, from any silicon vendor.
Keysight’s Rx compliance test solution recreates a compliant transmitter that generates a controlled distorted signal (worst case) and analyses the impact of the distortions on the receiver’s capability to correctly sample transmitted data. It enables automotive makers and their suppliers, as well as automotive engineers and system integrators, to stress the receiver and validate its performance in the noisy and inherently harsh environment of a car.
“At Keysight, we recognise that it is critical to address the growing market demands for high-speed digital interfaces for next-generation in-vehicle networks,” said Thomas Goetzl, vice president and general manager of Keysight’s Automotive and Energy Solutions business unit.
The Rx compliance test ensures the quality of the digital transmission by measuring the receiver’s ability to recover data from an impaired input signal, with a comprehensive test framework to identify the margin at which a device under test (DUT) is working. There is also a custom fixture that couples the noise to an active link to stress the receiver and accurate and repeatable results with Keysight’s arbitrary waveform generator (AWG) to generate a variety of random and complex noise profiles.
Other features include access to pre-defined noise profiles and all relevant hardware, software and accessories in a single model number, which saves time and money, added Keysight.
There is also automatic report generation in HTML or PDF formats including margin analysis.
BitifEye Digital Test Solutions offers test software which complement Keysight´s product portfolio of integrated and automated application-specific test systems. The partnership has led to what is claimed to be the first solution that can test the receivers of automotive SerDes MIPI A-PHY data links.
“We are excited to engage with Keysight to deliver a new way for the industry to validate receiver devices utilizing MIPI A-PHY,” said Julien Henaut, chief operating officer, BitifEye Digital Test Solutions.
Keysight delivers design and validation test products for software-driven insights and analytics to bring tomorrow’s technology products to market faster across the development lifecycle, in design simulation, prototype validation, automated software testing, manufacturing analysis, and network performance optimisation and visibility in enterprise, service provider and cloud environments. Customers are in the worldwide communications and industrial ecosystems, aerospace and defence, automotive, energy, semiconductor and general electronics markets.
