Find us at www.keysight.com Page 1 PAM-4 Measurement SDK and Resource Arbiter Optimization of throughput for transceiver production testing Introduction Optimizing throughput for transceiver production test and realizing close to 100% asset utilization of your digital communication analyzers (DCA demands new approaches. Achieve high throughput and utilize your hardware to the fullest by acquiring and processing waveforms simultaneously, not sequentially. Disaggregate waveform acquisition and analysis onto different physical or virtual machines to optimize measurement flow. Run multiple intensive analysis tasks in parallel through an analysis server and effortlessly scale these to use hardware at close to 100%. Realize PAM-4 measurements with the SDK on multiple physical or virtual machines. Further optimize the automated workflow for maximum throughput using the Keysight Resource Arbiter for optimizing resource usage. A typical software configuration includes several N1094BS1A SDK licenses, the KS8108A Resource Arbiter Server license, one or more KS8109A Resource Arbiter Client licenses together with KS8000A or KS8400A Pathwave Test Automation licenses, and optionally the plugins for instruments and other resources.
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PAM-4 Measurement SDK and
Resource Arbiter Optimization of throughput for transceiver production testing
Introduction
Optimizing throughput for transceiver production test and realizing close to 100% asset utilization of your
digital communication analyzers (DCA demands new approaches.
Achieve high throughput and utilize your hardware to the fullest by acquiring and processing waveforms
simultaneously, not sequentially. Disaggregate waveform acquisition and analysis onto different physical
or virtual machines to optimize measurement flow. Run multiple intensive analysis tasks in parallel
through an analysis server and effortlessly scale these to use hardware at close to 100%. Realize PAM-4
measurements with the SDK on multiple physical or virtual machines.
Further optimize the automated workflow for maximum throughput using the Keysight Resource Arbiter
for optimizing resource usage.
A typical software configuration includes several N1094BS1A SDK licenses, the KS8108A Resource
Arbiter Server license, one or more KS8109A Resource Arbiter Client licenses together with KS8000A or
KS8400A Pathwave Test Automation licenses, and optionally the plugins for instruments and other
resources.
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Overview
Realize automated test scripts that disaggregate signal acquisition and PAM-4 analysis compute tasks
onto different physical or virtual machines. Achieve optimum measurement throughput by running
compute intensive analysis tasks in parallel on multiple physical or virtual machines.
This Software Development Kit (SDK) realizes the following PAM-4 measurements on waveforms
captured with a Keysight Digital Communication Analyzer (N1092x DCA-M or N1000A DCA-X)
oscilloscope:
• TDECQ
• Outer OMA and OER
• Eye Width
• Eye Linearity
• Eye Skew
Benefits of Disaggregation
Traditional approach
In traditional test setups signal acquisition and signal analysis are performed on the same physical
hardware. Because resources are limited the acquisition and the analysis processes need to perform
sequentially.
Figure 1: Traditional approach for measurement
This approach limits measurement hardware utilization and throughput: Before next signal acquisition can
take place, the signal analysis must finish. Depending on the complexity of the analysis task and
processor speed the computation might take much longer than the acquisition time. This slows down the
overall throughput and the measurement and acquisition hardware stays idle during the analysis.
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Disaggregation approach distributing & parallel analysis on virtual machines
In the new approach with disaggregating the acquisition and analysis onto separate physical or virtual
machines it is possible to offload the analysis task to one or several analysis engines.
Figure 2: Disaggregation approach
Thus, a next acquisition can be started immediately after the raw signal has been upload to the analysis
engines. If the analysis of one waveform takes longer than the acquisition of the waveform then several
analysis processes can operate in parallel and take over a waveform as soon as acquisition is finished.
The administration is supported by a resource manager like the KS8108A. Scale the number of analysis
processes by adding multiple licenses of the N1094BS1A SDK.
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Pathwave Test Automation and Resource Arbiter
KS8400A Pathwave Test Automation Platform
Verification of devices, especially production, usually involves a set of test procedures using multiple
instruments. To achieve high throughput and minimize cost of test it is necessary to optimize the workflow
in multi-DUT test environment and make best use of the instruments and other resources by performing
procedure steps in parallel and sharing instruments when testing multiple devices. But designing an
optimum automated workflow for this is complicated. The Keysight Pathwave Test Automation Platform
(TAP) and the Resource Arbiter support this for optimizing resource usage.
Included with Keysight TAP is the core sequencing engine, tools and plugins to minimize your test system
development time and test execution speed.
Figure 3: KS8400A Pathwave Test Automation Features
TAP provides test steps to control instruments, switch optical and electrical routes, condition DUTs and
trigger analysis processes.
KS8108A and KS8109A Resource Arbiter
The Keysight Resource Arbiter supports the automated multi -DUT test even further for optimizing
resource usage of instruments and test station infrastructure. The resource arbiter provides the following
features:
Lock/Allocate an instrument based on:
• Instrument class (e.g. “Any DCA”) or specific instrument
• Consideration of available routes
• Consideration of switching cost
Switch Operation:
• Easily integrate any switch by implementing a simple ISwitch interface for the switch Instrument
driver.
• Routes for DUT <-> locked instruments automatically set
Other Key Features:
• Rest API for use from any Client
• Visualize Resource use history with Test Automation Timing Analyzer
• Statistical data via API
• Special support for instrument service and cloud computing
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N1094BS1A Application Example
The following typical transceiver test example illustrates the benefit of disaggregation.
When eye diagram testing on a 200G CWDM4 optical transceiver, all 4 transmitter channels are
stimulated with 25GBaud SSPRQ pattern according to IEEE 802.3. The transmitter signals are connected
to a N1092D 4 channel DCA-M. The DCA-M is connected to a PC where N1010 FlexDCA SW runs.
Experiment 1: No disaggregation of acquisition and analysis
Experiment 1 shows the traditional approach where acquisition and analysis are performed on the same
computer. FlexDCA both performs waveform acquisition and waveform analysis for PAM4 signal
parameters like TDECQ, outer OMA and optical extinction ratio, eye width, linearity and skew.
TDECQ analysis needs a lot of processing power.
Figure 4: Typical transceiver test setup in traditional configuration: No disaggregation of acquisition and analysis
The measurements are controlled by test plan realized by Pathwave test automation.
10 repeated acquisitions and subsequent analysis take 95 seconds for the above SSPRQ pattern on a
2.8GHz i7 processor.
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Experiment 2: With disaggregation of acquisition and analysis
In experiment 2 the DCA-M is connected to the above PC. However, in contrast to experiment 1 this PC
only manages the waveform acquisition. The acquired raw waveforms of the 4 DCA channels are
transmitted and distributed to the analysis processes on 4 additional PCs.
Figure 5: Transceiver test setup with disaggregation of acquisition and analysis
In addition to the above the KS8108A resource manager is used in conjunction with TAP to manage the
4 analysis processes on the 4 analysis PCs.
10 repeated acquisitions and subsequent analysis take approximately 46 seconds for the above SSPRQ
pattern on the above combination of 2.8GHz i7 & i5 processors.
The timing diagram shows the operation of the DCA and PCs for 10 measurements. At the bottom line
you see the waveform acquisitions and the data transmission. In the lines above you see the analysis
processes on the 4 physical machines.
After 1st acquisition the waveforms are uploaded and distributed to 4 computers and 1st analysis is
started.
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Figure 6 shows the timing diagram of experiment 2 using disaggregation.
Figure 6: Timing diagram for disaggregation setup
Immediately after first upload the DCA is ready and a 2nd acquisition is triggered. After the 2nd acquisition
the analysis of first waveforms is already finished. 2nd analysis and 3rd acquisition can start and run in
parallel.
The red numbers on the left show that during the 100 measurement the DCA HW is occupied to almost
100%. Utilization of the analysis machines ranges from 70 to 87% depending on processor type and
speed.
Comparing traditional vs. disaggregation approach
Finally comparing both experiments shows that through disaggregation and parallel waveform processing
the overall throughput was improved by a factor of 2 and measurement time reduced to 50% over the
traditional approach. Asset utilization of DCA HW is now increased to almost 100%.
Figure 7 shows he evaluation result comparing the traditional and the disaggregation approach.
Figure 7: Comparison of traditional approach and disaggregation approach
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Installation
The N1094BS1A PAM-4 Measurement SDK installer is for installation on 64-bit Windows 10 Operating
Systems (OS version 1607 or newer) and Windows Server 2012 R2 64-bit. It must not be installed on a
machine that already has the FlexDCA N1010A Software installed.
Ordering Information
The N1094BS1A PAM4 measurement SDK can be used in a customer written application or together with
the KS8400A TAP software and KS8108A and KS8109A resource arbiter, which requires a separate
license. The system prerequisites for KS8400A apply to use of the SDK.
N1094BS1A software licensing
Step 1. Choose your software product.
Step 2. Choose your license term: perpetual or time based.
Step 3. Only floating license available.
Step 4. Depending on the license term, choose your subscription duration.
License Type and Terms
Product License type License term
Perpetual Time-based
N1094BS1A Floating (single site)
N1094BS1A-1NP N1094BS1A-1NF 6 months
N1094BS1A-1NL 12 months
N1094BS1A-1NX 24 months
N1094BS1A-1NY 36 months
KS8400A and KS8108A/KS8109A software licensing
Step 1. Choose your software product.
Step 2. Choose your license term: perpetual or time based.
Step 3. Choose your license type: node-locked, transportable, USB portable, or floating.
Step 4. Depending on the license term, choose your support subscription duration.
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