Agilent Technologies N5980A manual

Agilent 3.125 Gb/s Serial BERT N5980A User Guide[...]

Notices © Agilent Technologies, Inc. 2006 No part of this man ual may be reprodu ced in any form or by any means (including electronic storage and retrieval or translation into a foreign language) without prior a greement and written consent from Agilent Technologies, Inc. as governed by United States and international copyright laws. Manual Part [...]

Safety Summary General Safety Precautions The following general safety precautions m ust be observed du ring all phases of operation of this instrument. Failure to comply with these precautions or with specific warnings elsewhere in this manual violates safety standards of de sign, manuf a cture, and in tended use of the instrument. Agilent Technol[...]

Safety Symbols on Instruments General Recycling Mark for plastic parts used in the product. Indicates warning or caution. If you see this symbol on a product, you must refer to the manuals for specific Warning or Caution information to avoid personal injury or damage to the product. Notice for European Community: This product complies with the rele[...]

Contents Contents 1 Introduction 7 2 Getting Started 8 Inspect Shipment 8 Connect the Instrument 9 Front Panel 9 Rear Panel 10 Install User Software for N5980A 11 To Install the User Software for N5980A 12 To Access N5980A 14 3 Operating N5980A with the User Interface 16 Introduction 16 Running the BER Test 17 Setting the Instrum ent Parameters 18 [...]

Contents Error 25 Sync Loss 25 Setup and Advanced Tab 26 Setup 26 Advanced 27 BER and Advanced BER Tab 28 BER 28 Advanced BER 29 5 Programming Reference 30 Introduction 30 Common Command Summary 30 Agilent N5980A Command Summary 30 SCPI Instrument Command L ist- Reference 31 Common Commands 31 All Channels 33 SMA Output (Electrical Generator) 34 SF[...]

Introduction 1 Introduction This chapter introduces you to the Serial BERT Us er Guide, and it provides information on the variou s chapters and topics covered. 1 Getting Started  Inspect Shipment  Connect the Instrument  Install User Software for N5980A 2 Operating N5980A with the User Interface  Introduction  Running the BER Test ?[...]

Getting Started 2 Getting Started Inspect Shipment Before you get started with the Serial BERT check if the shipment package contains the followi ng standard deliverables: Agilent N5980A 3.125 GB/s Serial BERT Local Power Cord If the content is incomplete, if there is mechanical damage, or if the instrument does not work within its specifications, [...]

Getting Started Connect the Instrument In order to connect the Serial BERT let’s have a look at the Fr ont and the Rear Panels: Front Panel The Front Panel has LEDs, Data In/O ut ports, and an SFP connector. Figure 1 Front Panel SFP The Small Form Factor Pl uggable interface (SFP) is an industry standard daughter card used in ne tworking devices.[...]

Getting Started LED LEDs Function Power LED Indicates power-on USB Active Indicates that the instrument is c urrently being used/controlled by the user softw are Signal Detect Indicates the status of the Sign al Detect line when the inserted SFP module supports a Signal Detect Control li ne. Usually th is pin indica tes wh ether the optical input p[...]

Getting Started Figure 3 Serial BERT setup diagram Install User Software for N5980A The requirements for software installation:  Either Windows 2000 Service Pack 4, or Windows XP Service Pack 2  Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 is automatically downloaded from the Microsoft downl oad center du ring installation. A lternatively dotnetfx.exe may be[...]

Getting Started To Install the User Software for N5980A 1 Insert the CD in the PC’s CD Drive. 2 Double-click Displays the Welcome screen. 3 The Installer guides you through th e installation process. 12 N5980A User Guide[...]

Getting Started Select the folder in which N5980A will be saved. N5980A User Guide 13[...]

Getting Started After the installation is completed, click Finish to close the installer. To Access N5980A To launch N5980A, go to Pr ogram File and click on: If there is a N5980A connected to the PC via USB, and the User Software is installed, then the following screen appears: NOTE Typical Hardware Initia lization duration is between 3 to 5 minut[...]

Getting Started Upon completion of Hardware Initialization, the Us er Interface starts and the following window appears. Demo Offline In Demo Offline mode N5980A need n ot be connected to the PC. The connection dialog looks like the screen below. Click Demo (Offline) to start the offline version of the GUI. NOTE Before disconnecting the USB cable, [...]

Operating N5980A with the User Interface 3 Operating N5980A with the User Interface Introduction The graphical user interface runs on the PC, an d the screen is divided into tw o areas; one for se tting parameters, and the other for viewing results. The Setting Parameters area of the screen has options for setting parameters like Data Rate, Data Pa[...]

Operating N5980A with the User Interface Running the BER Test The User Software supports a quick pass/fail measurement, which is generally used for testing the DUT in manufacturing. This measurement allows you to count th e number of bit errors during a user specified gating time. The result of the measurement is displayed as Gating Errors , Gating[...]

Operating N5980A with the User Interface Setting the Instrument Parameters N5980A has two (SFP and SMA) integrated Patt ern Generators, which can be adjusted to different parameters, for example, different patterns or different error insertion rates. The N5980A Error Detector has two (SFP and SMA) different physical input ports, while only on e inp[...]

Operating N5980A with the User Interface Advanced To view the Advanced page, click on t he File menu and enable the Advanced Mode : The Advanced page has the following settings: In this page you can set SFP and SMA Data Patterns, Error Insertion Rate, and also select Clock Trigger Output for the Generator. It also gives the option for setting the G[...]

Operating N5980A with the User Interface Viewing the Results There are two options for viewing the results, BER and Advanced BER, as shown below. BER displays Gating BER and the Elapsed Gating Time . The Advanced BER page can be opened on ly when Advanced Mode is enabled. See below: In this page you can see the Gating Errors , Actual Errors , and t[...]

Reference for the User Interface 4 Reference for the User Interface This section explains the measur ed parameters, and the display options that are specific to thes e measurements . Ad ditionally, some information is provided to explain the theoretical background to these measurements. When N5980A is launched the fo llowing screen is displayed: Fi[...]

Reference for the User Interface Store Setting As This is used to store/recall any se tting with a user selected filename. The user selects a specific location, and file name to save the settin gs. Recall Setting This recalls the saved settings. Factory Default Setting Restores the factory default settings, and is useful when the user has problems [...]

Reference for the User Interface Connect The Connect… option shows the Conn ection Dialog box. NOTE If there are no instruments connected to the PC, the n Connect button will be disabled. If an instrument is conne cted, the user can connect to that instrument. In the Available Devices , the list of connected device will appear, and the Connect bu[...]

Reference for the User Interface Info This option provides the following information. Help Menu The Help Menu has the following information. About gives you the Software details. Error Indicators The GUI screen contains the Error Indicator: There are two indicators and a BER bar, see the screen ab ove. These indicators inform you ab out the followi[...]

Reference for the User Interface BER Bar The BER bar displays th e BER calculated during a period of 200 ms. Error This indicator turns red when errors are detected.  Stable errors are caused by th e error add function: i t turns SFP/SMA Error Insertion Rate off.  Variable and high errors may b e caused by faulty connectors/cables . BERT conn[...]

Reference for the User Interface Setup and Advanced Tab Setup General Data Rate: There are different data rates in th e drop down list. These rates are common to the Gen erator, and the Error Detector. The following screen lists the available Data Rates. Generator Data Pattern: There are different patterns availabl e, for example, PRBS patter ns, C[...]

Reference for the User Interface Error Detector Data Pattern: The Error Detector (ED) has a bu ilt in CDR for automatic clock recovery, and phase alignment. Th e E D also performs automatic polarity correction when required . Additionally it can detect the incoming PRBS. The input for the Da ta Pattern has two options, SMA [Electrical], and SFP [Op[...]

Reference for the User Interface On the advanced page the SFP and th e SMA Data pattern can be adjusted independently. NOTE SFP Error Insertion Rate: This drop down list gives a set of Error Insertion Rates that can be inserted for the SFP output. SMA Error Insertion Rate: This drop down list gives a set of Error Insertion Rates that can be inserte[...]

Reference for the User Interface The screenshot below shows the Gating BER Bar. Elapsed Gating Time This bar shows the gating time while the test runs. Before the test begins this bar is empty as shown bel ow: And after the gating time is complete this bar appear s as shown below: Advanced BER This page contains Gating Error, Ac tual Error, Error D[...]

Programming Reference 5 Programming Reference Introduction The SCPI commands represent the instrument’s advanced anal ysis, and pattern generation features th at can be controlled from within the remote programs. Programming can only be done using ra w Windows Sockets. The remote programming language is clos e to SCPI, but it’s without a full f[...]

Programming Reference :SOUR1:VOLT :SOUR1:VOLT? :SOUR2:PATT :SOUR2:PATT? :SOUR2:PATT:EADD :SOUR2:PATT:EADD:RATE :SOUR2:PATT:EADD:RATE? :SOUR3:PATT? :SOUR3:PATT :SENS1:SYNC:TYPE :SENS1:SYNC:TYPE? :SENS1:PATT? :SENS1:GATE:PER :SENS1:GATE:PER? :SENS1:FETC:ECO? :SENS1:FETC:ECO:DELT? :SENS1:FETC:ERAT? :SENS1:FETC:ERAT:DELT? :SENS1:INP :SENS1:INP? :SENS1:[...]

Programming Reference Read error queue :SYST:ERR? Syntax :SYST:ERR? Description Reads one error from the instruments error queue. Load factory default setting *RST Syntax *RST Description Discards the current instru ment setting, and loads the reset/default setting. Operation complete *OPC? Syntax *OPC? Description Returns 1 when all pending comman[...]

Programming Reference Store current setting :MMEM:STOR:STAT “filename” Syntax :MMEM:STOR:STAT “filename” Description Stores the current setting into the specified file. If a file with the same name already exist s, then this file will be overwritten. Recall setting :MMEM:LOAD:STAT “filename” Syntax :MMEM:LOAD:STAT “filename” Descrip[...]

Programming Reference SMA Output (Electrical Generator) The SMA output is accessed via the r oot node :SOUR1 Pattern :SOUR1:PATT Syntax :SOUR1:PATT? :SOUR1:PATT PRBS7 | PRBS1 5 | PRBS23 | PRBS 31 | CLK2 | CLK4 | CLK8 | CLK1 0 | CLK16 | CLK20 | K28_5 Description Either sets or gets the pattern of the SMA output. Available Patterns Name Parameter PRB[...]

Programming Reference Error Insertion The error insertion is capable to enforce a given error ratio, and to add single errors into the data stre am. Both ar e available in parallel. Insertion Rate :SOUR1:PATT:EADD: RATE Syntax :SOUR1:PATT:EA DD:RATE? :SOUR1:PATT:EA DD:RATE NR3 Description Either sets or gets the error insertion rate. Only t he list[...]

Programming Reference SFP Output (Optical Generator) The SFP output is accessed via the root node :SOU R2 Pattern :SOUR2:PATT Syntax :SOUR2:PATT? :SOUR2:PATT PRBS7 | PRBS1 5 | PRBS23 | PRBS 31 | CLK2 | CLK4 | CLK8 | CLK1 0 | CLK16 | CLK20 | K28_5 Description Either sets or gets the pattern of the SFP output. Available Patterns Name Parameter PRBS 2[...]

Programming Reference Error Insertion The error insertion is capable to enforce a given error ratio, and to add single errors into the data stre am. Both ar e available in parallel. Insertion Rate :SOUR2:PATT:EADD: RATE Syntax :SOUR2:PATT:EA DD:RATE? :SOUR2:PATT:EA DD:RATE NR3 Description Either sets or gets the error insertion rate. Only t he list[...]

Programming Reference Trigger Output The trigger output is accessible via the root node :SOUR3 Pattern :SOUR3:PATT Syntax :SOUR3:PATT? :SOUR3:PATT CLK2 | CLK4 | CL K8 | CLK10 | CLK 16 | CLK20 Description Either sets or gets the pattern of the trigger output. Available Patterns Name Parameter Clock / 2 CLK2 Clock / 4 CLK4 Clock / 8 CLK8 Clock / 10 C[...]

Programming Reference Synchronization mode :SENS1:SYNC:TYPE Syntax :SENS1:SYNC:TYPE AUTO|SFP|SMA|PRBS7|PRBS15|PEBS23|PRBS31 :SENS1:SYNC:TYPE? Description Either sets or gets the sync hronization type. The synchronization t ype defines whic h patterns will be used to synchronize when a synchronizatio n loss is detect ed by the Error Detector. Availa[...]

Programming Reference Gating Time :SENS1:GATE:PER Syntax :SENS1:GATE:PE R? :SENS1:GATE:PE R integer Description Either gets or sets the durati on of the gating interval. The allowed range for t he gating time is 1s to 608399s (168 hours, 59 minut es, 59 seconds) . The gating time is always in seconds. Fractional sec o nds are not supported, and wil[...]

Programming Reference Gating Progress :SENS1:GATE:STAT Syntax :SENS1:GATE:STAT? Description Requests the current state of the gating interval. It will return 1 while the gating is in progress and 0 if the gating is finished/ inactive. It is guaranteed that the very first :SENS1:GATE:STAT? query after the start of the gatin g period will report a va[...]

Programming Reference Sample Code The following example code shows how to control the N5980A from within a remote program. The exampl e code is implemented in C#. The code snippets show the required code that needs to be added to a user program. It implements a class N5980A in the namespac e N5980AExample that allows communication with the N5980A u[...]

Programming Reference /// </summary> public void Disconnect() { if (m_Client != null) m_Client.Close(); } /// <summary> /// Write to a SCPI command to a network socket and return the /// response if it was a query. /// </summary> /// <param name="s">SCPI command to be written to the socket</param> /// <ret[...]

Programming Reference { /// <summary> /// The main entry point for the application. /// </summary> [STAThread] static void Main() { N5980A instrument = new N5980A(); // Connect to the N5980A software running on the same // PC as this program and that is using port number 5025 instrument.Connect("localhost", 5025); // set the d[...]