SerialTek is a provider of innovative data storage test tools and solutions since 2007. SerialTek solutions support the Serial Attached SCSI (SAS), SATA (Serial ATA), PCI Express (PCIe) and Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) protocols.

KODIAK™ PCIE GEN5 Analysis System

PCIe Analysis Platform with Embedded Hardware, Calibration-Free SI-Fi™ Probing and Automatic Equalization, Internal SSD Storage, Touchscreen LCD, and Standard PCIe Cabling.

Powerful SerialTek Features

  • No tuning (calibration) required, Kodiak’s Rx automatically equalizes (EQs) the incoming PCIe signals at all data rates
  • Embedded trace processing architecture and the fastest performance
  • Deep 144GB Trace Buffers
  • Internal 4TB Trace Storage (SSD) and access for multiple users
  • Direct Attach Storage, including two PCIe OCuLink ports and two USB 3.2 ports
  • Two 10GbE SFP+ (optical/copper) and one 1GbE RJ-45 connections for fast and reliable connectivity
  • Real-time access to traces in memory prior to downloading
  • Touchscreen LCD for analyzer setup and status

SI-FI™ PCIe Gen5 Interposers

SerialTek’s PCIe Gen5 Slot (AIC) Interposers with SI-Fi technology are specially designed test adapters that are physically placed in between the PCIe slot and a PCIe endpoint to intercept and relay a copy of the high-speed signaling and discrete data lines to the Kodiak PCIe Analysis system in real-time. Together with the Kodiak™, SerialTek’s Gen5 (32.0 GT/s) PCI Express® (PCIe®) interposers with SI-Fi™ allow users to monitor an unprecedented variety of PCIe bus traffic with unparalleled power and ease.

Enabled by SerialTek’s proprietary SI-Fi™ technology, users can save hours over legacy approaches requiring interposer calibration.

This technology improves critical test coverage by providing high signal integrity, even over changing conditions, such as link training (LTSSM), Power Management, Hot Plug, Reset, and other tests where the physical link/lane characteristics may change.

SI-Fi™ PCIe Gen5 Interposers continue SerialTek’s TCO approach. With the focus on signal integrity, QSFP-DD based cables connect each interposer to the analyzer. These cables are readily available and rated greater than 32GHz, resulting in uncompromised SI at all PCIe transfer rates. All sideband signals are passed through the interposer from Root Complex (Host) to Controller (Device), and all are made available to the analyzer for trigger, decode, and analysis.

Interposer Key Features

  • No tuning (calibration) required, Kodiak’s Rx automatically equalizes (EQs) the incoming PCIe signals at all data rates
  • No tuning (calibration) required. Host and Device signals pass through the interposer, allowing for real-world PCIe link training and easier setup
  • Supports PCI Express Gen 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 and 5.0
  • Access to all sidebands, including SMBus
  • Accurate capture of PCIe traffic at line rates from 32.0 GT/s (Gen5) down to 2.5 GT/s (Gen1)
  • Passive tapping to avoid masking, hiding, or cleaning up electrical and/or link issues
  • Low-cost, flexible, high-performance cabling for reliable analyzer to interposer connections

AIC Interposers

PCI Express slots are ubiquitous in ATX or ATX-based form factors in computing, storage, networking, and communication equipment applications. SerialTek’s PCIe Gen5 slot interposers support analysis of x1, x2, x4, x8, and x16 link-widths. All relevant sidebands, including SMBus from the host or from external/third-party injection or generation tools are supported.

KODIAK™ PCIE Gen4 Analysis System

SerialTek’s new PCIe®/NVMe™ analysis platform is an embedded architecture that delivers unparalleled advances in capture, search, and processing acceleration. Kodiak PCIe/NVMe Analysis Platform with Embedded Hardware, Real-Time Protocol Processor™, Calibration-Free SI-Fi™ Probing and Automatic Equalization, Internal SSD Storage, Touchscreen LCD, and Standard PCIe Cabling.

Key Features

  • No tuning (calibration) required.
    • - Kodiak’s Rx automatically equalizes (EQs) the PCIe signals at all data rates.
  • Embedded trace processing architecture and fastest performance.
  • Real-Time Protocol Processor
    • - Automatically captures PCI Config Space, Controller Registers, and NVMe Queues
    • - No boot trace needed
    • - Native NVMe triggers by device (BDF), Queues, and Packet/Event
    • - Native NVMe filters by device (BDF), Controller Registers, Queues, and Packet/Event
  • Deep Trace Buffers
    • – 36GB, 72GB, 144GB
  • Internal Trace Storage (SSD)
    • – 512GB, 1TB, 2TB
    • – Read-only access for non-primary users
  • Direct Attach Storage
    • – Two OCuLink (PCIe 3.0) ports
    • – Two USB 3.1 ports
  • Network and Direct Connectivity
    • – Two 10GbE SFP+ (optical/copper)
    • – One 1GbE RJ-45
  • Single-port (1×4) and dual-port (2×2) analysis in one platform
  • Real-time access to traces in memory (prior to downloading)
    • – Users can review and analyse captured traces without downloading the trace
  • Touchscreen LCD for Analyzer setup and status

SerialTek’s new Gen4 Interposers w/SI-fi technology

  • Real-world PCIe link training type probing design. Host and Device signals pass through the interposer, allowing for real-world PCIe link training and easier set up.
  • Each lane’s analog signal is received at the probes differential input and distributed to two separate phase matched differential outputs with a nominal gain of 0dB.
  • No calibration. Eliminates requirement for interposer and analyzer Rx calibration.
  • Improves critical test coverage, including link training (LTSSM), Power Management, Hot Plug, Reset, and other tests where the physical link/lane characteristics may change.
  • Form-factors: AIC, M.2, U.2, U.3, EDSFF*, OCuLink*, and others currently in development.

SI-FI™ PCIE GEN4 Interposers

Together with the new Kodiak™, SerialTek’s Gen4 (16.0 GT/s) PCI Express® (PCIe®) and Non-volatile Memory Express® (NVMe®) interposers with SI-Fi™ allow users to monitor an unprecedented variety of PCIe and NVMe bus traffic with unparalleled power and ease.

Enabled by SerialTek’s proprietary SI-Fi™ technology, users can save hours over legacy approaches requiring interposer calibration. This technology improves critical test coverage by providing high signal integrity, even over changing conditions, such as link training (LTSSM), Power Management, Hot Plug, Reset, and other tests where the physical link/lane characteristics may change.

Each lane’s analog signal is received at the probe’s differential input and distributed to two separate phase matched differential outputs with a nominal gain of 0dB, allowing the Host and Device signals to pass through the interposer, allowing for real-world PCIe link training and easier set-up of the analyzer and DUT.

SI-Fi™ PCIe Gen4 Interposers continue SerialTek’s TCO approach. With the focus on signal integrity, flexible, low-cost, SFF-8644-based cables connect each interposer to the analyzer. These cables are readily available and rated greater than 20GHz, resulting in uncompromised SI at all PCIe transfer rates.

All sideband signals are passed through the interposer from Root Complex (Host) to Controller (Device), and all are made available to the analyzer for trigger, decode, and analysis.

  • SI-Fi™ Interposers require no calibration.
  • Supports PCI Express Gen 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0 Accurate capture of PCIe data traffic at line rates including 16.0 GT/s (Gen4), 8.0 GT/s (Gen3), 5.0 GT/s (Gen2), and 2.5 GT/s (Gen1).
  • Single U.2 / U.3 interposer supports both single-port and dual-port capture (only one analyzer is needed for dual-port).
  • “Passive” tapping to avoid masking, hiding, or “cleaning up” electrical and/or link issues.
  • Low-cost, flexible, high-performance cabling for reliable analyzer to interposer connections.

Panda iTAP™ Embedded PCIe Analysis

Convenient Access to Embedded PCIe Applications

The Panda appliance conveniently brings together SerialTek’s iTAP™ technology and BusXpert™ software with Broadcom PEA technology to smartly solve the problem of analyzing embedded PCIe links in ICs such as the Broadcom PEX89000 PCI Express Gen 5.0 ExpressFabric Platform. The iTAP software is a specialized “tap” framework that is fully integrated with BusXpert, the feature-rich analysis software developed for the revolutionary Kodiak™ PCIe 5.0 Protocol Analysis System.

With the increasing ubiquity of sophisticated, highly integrated systems employing switches and chip-to-chip interconnects, physical limitations to accessing PCIe traffic can prove quite challenging. With the easy access provided by the Panda appliance and SerialTek’s PCIe software packages, developers are able to quickly set up, capture, decode, and view PCIe trace data captured on-chip by Broadcom’s PCIe Embedded Analyzer (PEA) technology. When used in conjunction with the Kodiak Protocol Analysis System, developers can seamlessly transition between Kodiak’s extremely deep traces and iTAP’s embedded traces from all instances of PEA stations / ports.

Powerful Features

  • Advanced BusXpert analysis software with collaborative web UI
  • Can be used in conjunction with Kodiak PCIe 5.0 protocol analyzers with the same UI
  • Captures TLPs, DLLPs, and Ordered Sets
  • 288K capture buffers per station / port
  • Synchronized multi-station capture
  • Filtering capabilities:

    – Discard TLPs, DLLPs and Ordered Sets

    – Compression of repeating bytes

  • Triggering capabilities:

    – Two-level triggering on input trace data

    – Input trigger can be pin-based or routed from internal signals

    – Output trigger can be routed to other trace buffer instances and to a chip output pin

BusXpert Micro II PCIe/NVMe Gen 2, 3 Protocol Analyzer

The BusXpert Micro II PCI Express® (PCIe®) analyser is SerialTek’s third analyser designed and optimized for equipment manufacturers that are developing storage products and solutions using PCI Express technology. With support for data rates of 2.5 GT/s, 5.0 GT/s (Gen 2) and 8.0 GT/s (Gen 3) and bus widths of x1, x2 and x4, the Micro II provides accurate capture, analysis and deep insight of PCIe traffic at all layers of the protocol stack.

  • No user calibration required. The SerialTek interposers are linear pass-through designs and the analyzer auto-calibrates.
  • No boot trace required. The SerialTek analyzers use a unique auto-archiving design to automatically capture set up and changes to the Config Space, Registers, and NVMe Queue creation and deletion. This is particularly important to test environments for hot-plug, link resets, and any other situations where the Config Space, Registers, or Queues change.
  • Industry standard (and lower cost) SFF-8644 cables.
  • Large protocol trace capture memory options.

Low Loss Linear PCIe Gen 3 Interposers

  • Slot Interposer : Capture and display PCI Express traffic between an adapter card (AIC) and Host system.
  • M.2 Interposer : For M.2 socket 2 or M.2 socket 3 devices between a host system and a M.2/NGFF connector on an SSD.
  • U.2 Interposer : Designed to be used to analyse PCIe traffic between a host backplane and single or dual ported SSDs.

BusXpert Micro II Series SAS/SATA Analyser

The new SerialTek BusXpert Micro II revolutionizes the analysis of devices and systems utilizing the high speed SAS and SATA storage protocols. With key features found in few other SAS/SATA analyzers the Micro II is a portable, lightweight unit that supports up to 36 GBs of capture buffer, hardware accelerated gigabit Ethernet, pre-indexed and compressed trace data and multiple analysis processors.

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