Receiver Stressed Eye Calibration

Figure 18. N4903B JBERT Setup for PCIe 3.0 Receiver Stress Testing.

The PCI Express 3.0 BASE specification

outlines the requirements for a PCIe

3.0 compliant receiver equalizer. The

capabilities defined employ a reference

equalizer that consists of a CTLE

(continuous time linear equalizer) and

a single tap DFE (decision feedback

equalizer).

In order to ensure that your devices

receiver equalizer is at least as capable as

the reference equalizer defined in the PCIe

3.0 BASE specification, it is necessary

to execute a stressed eye receiver test.

The signal that must be presented to the

receiver must represent a worst case

condition yet still be a valid and compliant

PCIe 3.0 signal.

To achieve this calibrated worst case

signal, it is necessary to carefully

construct a significantly small amplitude

signal that contains a prescribed amount

of certain specified impairments. These

impairments include sinusoidal jitter,

random jitter, and channel induced

intersymbol interference (ISI). In addition,

it is necessary to add common mode and

differential mode noise simultaneously

to the jitter cocktail in order to emulate

system crosstalk.

The N5393D-4FP along with your N4903B

JBERT bit error ratio tester and required

accessories, such as an 81150A Pulse

Function Arbitrary Noise Generator,

N4916B De-emphasis Signal Converter,

and N4915A-014 PCI Express 3.0

calibration channels.

Figure 19. Setting up instrument control of the N4903B and 81150A from the PCIe application.

Set target stressed voltage test

parameters for the calibration

Set target stressed jitter test

parameters for the calibration