Agilent Technologies E2969A User manual

Agilent E2969A Protocol Compliance Test Card
for PCI Express
User Manual
Agilent Technologies

E2969-91020
Important Notice
© Agilent Technologies, Inc. 2004
Manual Part Number
E2969-91020
Revision
Revision 2.0, December 2004
Printed in Germany
Agilent Technologies,
Deutschland GmbH
Herrenberger Str. 130
71034 Boeblingen, Germany
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Safety Notices
CAUTION
A CAUTION notice denotes a
hazard. It calls attention to an
operating procedure, practice, or the
like that, if not correctly performed
or adhered to, could result in
damage to the product or loss of
important data. Do not proceed
beyond a CAUTION notice until the
indicated conditions are fully
understood and met.
WARNING
A WARNING notice denotes a
hazard. It calls attention to an
operating procedure, practice, or the
like that, if not correctly performed
or adhered to, could result in
personal injury or death. Do not
proceed beyond a WARNING notice
until the indicated conditions are
fully understood and met.
Specific Cautions
Do not use the test card for any
other purposes or in any other way
than described in this manual.
The test card may become hot
during use. Do NOT touch any of the
components on the test card. Do
NOT place the test card on
flammable surfaces during or after
operation.
Trademarks
Windows®, Windows 2000®, and
Windows XP® are U.S. registered
trademarks of Microsoft
Corporation.
Safety Symbols on the E2969A:
Indicates that antistatic precautions
should be taken.
Indicates hot surfaces, please do not
touch.
This product complies with the
relevant legal directives.

E2969-91020 Content-1
Contents
Introduction 1-1
Test Modes 1-3
Installation 2-1
Prerequisites 2-1
Installing the Software 2-3
Installing the Hardware 2-8
Testing the Installation 2-10
Working with the PTC 3-1
Setting up the Test Hardware for Add-In Card Mode 3-1
Setting up the Test Hardware for Topology Test Mode 3-3
Using the Test Software for AIC Tests under Linux 3-4
Using the Test Software for AIC Tests under Windows 3-7
Using the Test Software for Topology Mode Tests under
Windows 3-8
Administering the PTC 3-10
Troubleshooting 4-1
Appendix 5-1
Hardware Description 5-1
Technical Specifications 5-8
Declaration of Conformity 5-10

Content-2 E2969-91020

E2969-91020 1-1
Introduction
The Agilent E2969A protocol test card (PTC) is a combination of software
and plug-in card that can be used for PCI Express compliance tests.
The PTC performs tests to verify and ensure compliance with PCI
Express as defined by the PCI-SIG.
The card runs on a PCI Express x1 lane at 2.5 Gbit/s. It is plugged into
one of the PCI Express slots of the target platform.
As an R&D engineer, you can use the PTC to validate the functional
compliance of your PCI Express-based designs, including chips, add-in
cards or systems.
The PTC provides a set of automated pre-programmed compliance tests
for testing both transaction layer and data link layer as well as power
management and configuration space. Furthermore, it monitors the

Introduction Test Modes
1-2 E2969-91020
behavior of the DUT (device under test) in response to certain error
conditions.
For more detailed analysis, the PTC provides a connector to Agilent’s
E2960 protocol analyzer. With the analyzer, you can monitor and analyze
captured PCI Express traffic between an adapter card and a system, for
example.
Further features include
• Field-upgradeable FPGA-based card
• USB 2.0 interface for programming and topology simulation mode
• Can act either as a PCI Express standalone add-in card, or as a PCI
Express interposer card for x1 operation
• Card supplied with two different software packages:
– The AIC test mode software which runs under Linux Operating
system with the PCI Express compliance tests for Add-In-Cards
– A windows software package that contains the AIC Tests for
Windows as well as the Topology Tests. This package contains also
some additional tools for checking and updating the Protocol Test
Card, which runs under Windows via the USB connector.

Test Modes Introduction
E2969-91020 1-3
Test Modes
The protocol test card provides three test modes:
• Add-In-Card test mode
• Known Endpoint test mode
• Topology test mode
The test software provides a list of tests for each of these modes. You can
select the mode and execute the tests from the graphical user interface.
The current version of the PTC only supports the Add-In-Card test mode
and Topology Test Mode. Known Endpoint test mode will be supported by
one of the next releases.
Add-In-Card Test Mode
In the Add-In-Card test mode, the PTC acts as a switch device between
the target platform and another PCI Express add-in card (DUT). The DUT
is plugged into the PCI Express slot on top of the PTC.
Though the upper slot of the PTC is capable of accepting up to x16 cards,
only x1 links are supported.
The tests in this mode check the correct behavior of the add-in card. The
test software communicates with the PTC using PCI Express commands
and performs various tests with the DUT.
In this mode it is necessary to power the PTC through the external power
connector. Any standard ATX Power Supply can be used for this purpose.
NOTE
NOTE

Introduction Test Modes
1-4 E2969-91020
Known Endpoint Test Mode
In the Known Endpoint test mode, the PTC behaves like a known
endpoint device.
This mode is used for system testing. No other card can be plugged into
the PTC in this mode. The software runs various KEP tests to test the
systems behavior on certain error conditions.
The KEP mode will be supported by one of the next software releases.
Topology Mode
The Topology mode is used to test BIOS settings.
Controlled by software running on an external host connected through
USB, the PTC pretends to behave like a variety of PCI Express devices. No
other card can be plugged into the PTC in this mode.
All configuration accesses are handled via the software connected
through the USB link. No other accesses or transactions are supported in
this mode.
In this mode it is necessary to power the PTC through the external power
connector. Any standard ATX Power Supply can be used for this purpose.
NOTE

E2969-91020 2-1
Installation
Test setups using the Agilent E2969A protocol test card (PTC) include the
following components:
• E2969A Protocol Test Card (PTC) card plugged into the target platform
• Add-In-Card Tests: PTC software running on the target platform
providing a graphical user interface used for controlling the tests and
monitoring the test results
• Topology Mode Tests: PTC software running running on an extra
controlling host PC connected to the test card through USB to run the
tests. This software package is also used for administration purposes.
This chapter shows how to install these components and verify their
operation.
Prerequisites
The PTC supports the PCI Express Specification 1.0a.
It is intended to be used standalone or as part of Intel’s Product
Development Kits (PDKs) for PCI Express Technology. The PTC integrates
into the PDK Software environment and tests.
For the Add-In-Card test mode as well as the Topology test mode, the PTC
must be plugged into a target platform, for example, the one provided
with the Intel PDK.

Installation Prerequisites
2-2 E2969-91020
PCI Express traffic must be scrambled as described in the PCI Express
specification. Unscrambled data transfer is not supported.
The Add-In-Card (AIC) tests run under the operating system Linux and
Windows. In case of AIC Tests under Linux, the target platform must
fulfill the following prerequisites:
• Red Hat Linux 9 installed, running the uniprocessor kernel
• “Kernel Development” package installed, including the Tk GUI toolkit
for Tcl, with shared libraries
• at least one free PCI Express slot that can be configured to run as x1
PCI Express connection
• CD-ROM drive available
In case of AIC Tests under Windows, the target platform must fulfill the
following prerequisites:
• Windows 2K or Windows XP installed
• at least one free PCI Express slot that can be configured to run as x1
PCI Express connection
• CD-ROM drive available
The controlling host for the Topology tests and administrative purposes
must fulfill the following prerequisites:
• 1 GHz PC with a Pentium 4 or equivalent
• Windows 2000 or Windows XP installed
• USB connector available
• CD-ROM drive available