Gearing Up for PCIe 4.0 Electrical Compliance Test

Figure 1: A key element in PCIe 4.0
compliance test is a high-bandwidth,
real-time oscilloscope (shown is the
Teledyne LeCroy LabMaster 10Zi-A)

Armed with some of the background information and history on PCIe 4.0 electrical compliance testing, we're now ready to look at just what it takes in terms of test equipment to determine compliance for a PCIe 4.0 device. With the increase in data-transfer rate from 8 Gb/s in PCIe 3.0 to 16 Gb/s in PCIe 4.0, so too have the test equipment requirements advanced.

Introduction to PCIe 4.0 Electrical Compliance Test

Figure 1: PCI Express is now in its fourth generation
and poses daunting physical-layer test challenges

The Peripheral Component Interface Express standard (PCI Express, or PCIe) has been with us for some 14 years now, a pretty good run by computer-industry standards, and it shows no signs of fading away anytime soon. Now in its fourth generation, which sports data-transfer rates up to 16 Gb/s, PCIe presents daunting physical-layer test requirements (Figure 1).