Agilent Technologies Announces Availability of DDR3 Protocol Violation Detector with Real-Time Reporting and Triggering

The DDR3 Detective, manufactured by FuturePlus System Corp., is compatible with Agilent logic analyzers and oscilloscopes. The new DDR3 Detective is ideal for designers involved with DDR3 DIMM or SO-DIMM memory system failure analysis and bus functional-parametric validation in PC gaming, servers, supercomputing, high-definition television, laptops, desktops and mobile computing applications.



Current detection methods require one-at-a-time logic analyzer triggers or post-processing software that looks only at slices of the DDR3 memory's operation. The new DDR3 Detective analyzes real-time command activity that may break the rules of the DDR3 specification and threaten data integrity. Because problematic activities may occur infrequently, they can go undetected until late in the product cycle. Catching these problems and identifying their root cause early is the key to fixing them before either silicon or firmware becomes widely disseminated.



The DDR3 Detective is an ideal complement to our logic analyzers and high-performance oscilloscopes, said Ross Nelson, general manager of Agilent's Digital Debug Division. Our customers have been asking for tools that help them find violations earlier in the design process, and we are delighted to meet their needs by offering the FuturePlus product.



The DDR3 Detective offers full-speed triggering on system activity and intelligent and automated analysis of DDR3 protocol and performance, said Edward Aichinger, president of FuturePlus Systems. DDR3 developers will be able to cut time to market with this new product because they will be assured their design meets the specification.



The DDR3 Detective is bundled with several types of interposers to connect to the system under test, giving engineers more flexibility and making the product easy to use. The interposers support a variety of memory modules, including DDR3 SDRAM DIMM and DDR3 SDRAM SO-DIMM.



The product line includes support for probing a second slot on a single channel. This functionality adds coverage for designs that have two DDR3 slots on a single DDR3 channel. In addition, the DDR3 Detective can connect to Agilent logic analyzers or oscilloscopes either individually or simultaneously.



The DDR3 Detective includes a PC-based probe manager interface that speeds setup and simplifies analysis. It allows engineers to set up the DDR3 Detective, select tests and report violations and performance metrics. The DDR3 Detective is controlled via a USB interface between it and the PC.