Software adds PAM-4 analysis capability to oscilloscopes

28th January 2015

Keysight Technologies (formerly Agilent)

Mick Elliott

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Datasheet

Fast and accurate characterisation of PAM-4 signals can now be made using Keysight Technologies’ 86100D DCA-X wide-bandwidth oscilloscope platform. The 86100D-9FP PAM-N analysis software provides comprehensive analysis of optical and electrical PAM-4 (pulse amplitude modulation with four amplitude levels) signals.

Increasing demand for rich content and instant access to information is driving the need for increased network bandwidth in data centres. Simply building faster components is no longer an option for meeting this need. PAM-4 is a type of multilevel signalling designed to increase the amount of data that can be sent across high-speed digital communication links. PAM-4 designs, for example, will likely enable the transition from 100Gb to 400Gb Ethernet speeds.

Several industry groups and standards bodies are using, or actively considering using, PAM-4 technology to jump to the next-generation speed class and enable higher data rates for a given channel bandwidth compared to traditional non-return-to-zero (NRZ) signalling. While PAM-4 technology adapts some traditional NRZ measurement algorithms for PAM-4 signals, to fully analyse system performance, unique PAM-4 measurements and parameters are also required.

86100D-9FP PAM-N analysis software offers measurements such as eye width, eye height and eye skew, level amplitude, level noise and level skew and amplitude level linearity.

The PAM-4 option may also be combined with existing DCA-X software options to provide even more powerful analysis capability including Embedding/de-embedding of PAM-4 channels using 86100D Option SIM InfiniiSim-DCA and jitter and amplitude analysis on IEEE JP03 patterns using 86100D Option 200/300.

Multilevel signalling systems are particularly susceptible to noise, so the 86100D’s low-noise, wide-bandwidth plug-in modules are particularly well suited for characterizing PAM signals. 86100D Option 9FP PAM-N analysis capabilities are supported by all 86100D DCA-X plug-in modules, such as the 86108B precision waveform analyser module for accurate analysis of electrical signals to 32 Gbaud or the 86105D-281 for accurate analysis of high-speed optical signals. Additionally, engineers can perform offline analysis on saved or simulated PAM signals using N1010A Option 9TP PAM analysis software installed on a PC.