Agilent Technologies Announces Analysis Software for USB Protocol Analyzers

USB has truly become a universal connection for electronic devices, said Ross Nelson, general manager of Agilent's Digital Debug Solutions group. USB 3.0 designs have been adopted as a default connection for external disk drives and adapters for high-speed networks, placing greater demand on USB performance. The new MegaZoom technology analyzes operations in real time with a full view of the connection's performance, helping designers optimize both new and existing USB devices.

MegaZoom technology in the U4611A and U4611B quickly analyzes massive amounts of data and drills into the detail designers need. Features include:

-MegaZoom delivers up to 18 GB of deep memory data capture without the sluggish response times and complex user interfaces inherent with traditional analyzers.
-With patented indexing techniques performed in proprietary FPGA designs, MegaZoom can analyze the 5 Gbps bi-directional data of USB 3.0 in real time.
-Results are displayed in seconds, providing instant access to all events in the capture with a single click.
-MegaZoom is not a special mode-it performs at full bandwidth in every capture, regardless of additional triggers and analysis performed by the analyzer.

The software allows the U4611A, U4611B and U4612A USB protocol analyzers to monitor and capture bus activity and provide immediate access to the full detail of the entire data capture buffer-up to 18 GB. Real-time performance information is calculated, counted, logged and graphed in a single display. Performance data allows designers to quickly and easily identify the events that are causing throughput problems, endpoint data retry and communication errors.

In addition to providing a complete set of features for measuring packet performance, the new Link Training Status State Machine views allow designers to see the real-time current state of the USB link while performance information is collected. This same LTSSM information is captured and stored with the data capture for full detailed analysis.