Tektronix Delivers New BERTScope Model Addressing 100G Optical Receiver Test Requirements

05/28/2014

Tektronix, Inc., a leading worldwide provider of test, measurement and monitoring instrumentation, introduced the BSA286CL BERTScope Bit Error Rate Tester. The BSA286CL is designed for the low intrinsic jitter and precision impairments required for testing a broad set of 100G communications standards including OIF-CEI, CAUI, and InfiniBand Standards.

Receiver testing has become increasing important in 100G electrical systems and silicon testing. With the advent of sophisticated silicon receiver equalization, higher levels of jitter tolerance must be tested, debugged and margined. Until now, available bit error rate testers have been unable to generate the requisite degree of impairments with a low enough jitter noise floor to perform these tasks effectively. The BSA286CL is the industry's first to fully meet these precision impairment and error analysis requirements, along with ease of use which BERTScopes are renowned for.

"Inphi's commitment to leading the industry in optical technology, both at 100G and beyond, is helped by testing tools which provide precision impairment and lower noise to validate performance to key specs like OIF-CEI 3.0," said Mark Marlett, senior principal engineer, Inphi.

When 100G silicon characterization engineers test their OIF-CEI-28GVSR systems, a key requirement is the ability to drive their parts into receiver margin failure before running out of precision impairments in their BERT. The BSA286CL has a fully re-designed jitter impairment system which incorporates state of the art modulation technology to 100G PHY Layer testing.
The 28.6 Gb/s BERTScope supports higher levels of Sinusoidal Jitter (SJ) and other jitter impairments while maintaining low sub 300 fs intrinsic jitter floor performance at key 100G data rates.

"The BSA286CL rounds out the comprehensive Tektronix high performance BERT portfolio which support key industry standards. These products are all integral players in supporting the emerging 100G ecosystem," said Brian Reich, general manager, Performance Oscilloscopes, Tektronix. "In addition, with our recent acquisition of Picosecond Pulse Labs, Tektronix now offers the industry's broadest selection of BERT-based technology combined with high performance oscilloscopes, giving customers a total solution to all their 100G needs."

Another new capability in the BSA286CL is Combined Random, Bounded Uncorrelated and High Frequency Sinusoidal Jitter (RJ, BUJ and SJ) impairments up to 28.6G offering combined levels exceeding 7.5UI over a broad range of required jitter tolerance (JTOL) frequencies. An industry first, this capability is key to meeting OIF-CEI 3.0 JTOL specifications as well as similar needs found in IEEE802.3bj 100G specifications.

The BSA286CL adds to the test & measurement industry's broadest communications test portfolio of BERT's. The Tektronix BERTScope™ & PatternPro™ families provide a broad range of signal conditioning and BER analysis from 500Mb/s to 40Gb/s across 1-4 channels.

Tektronix, Inc., www.tek.com