Communication test and monitoring equipment consists of various products in the wireline, wireless, optical, and telecommunication market segments. These products include network/protocol analyzers, spectrum analyzers, bit-error rate testers (BERTs), voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) testers, SONET/SDH testers, and more.

Designing communication test products presents a three-fold challenge:

1. The need to support a variety of standards such as PCI Express* (PCIe-gen3 and PCIe-gen4*) and 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) well ahead of equipment manufacturers
   
2. The constant pressure to upgrade products that support emerging standards, new features, and new functionality
3. The need to reduce board count through integration of high performance
   

As a result, designers need programmable solutions that provide the flexibility to upgrade and prolong the life of the tester equipment. Programmability is both a business and design requirement, making FPGAs the ideal solution for these applications.

The Figure below illustrates the use of Intel® FPGAs and Intel® FPGA Intellectual Property (IP) functions in a multiport network/protocol analyzer. There are three key functional blocks in a typical tester line card: a generator, a framer/media acess control (MAC), and an analyzer. The generator generates the test pattern, which is sent to the framer for framing and then over to the device under test (DUT). Once the data comes back from the DUT, the framer sends the data to the analyzer for bit-error rate (BER) testing, histogram, and various other test procedures.

Key System Architecture Variables

• Number of ports per line card
• Power (total power dissipation per board: maximum 50 – 60 W)
• Multiple ports with varying network protocols (Ethernet, GbE, optical, etc.)
• Software/hardware partitioning (Layers 1 – 7)

Multiport Network/Protocol Analyzer

Solutions

The feature-rich architecture of the Intel Stratix-10 provides an excellent solution for communication tester equipment production needs. These programmable device families give system designers flexibility, performance, integration, and design resources that are not available in any other device solution. These devices along with Intel’s extensive portfolio of IP cores give designers industry-leading development solutions for the next generation of communication tester equipment.

Intel Stratix-10 series FPGAs use a high-performance architecture that accelerates block-based designs for maximum system performance. Intel Stratix-10 devices include up to 2.75M equivalent logic elements (LEs), up to 229 Mb of embedded memory, high-performance, variable-precision digital signal processing (DSP) blocks with up to 11,520 18x19 high-performance multipliers, and flexible I/Os for most popular interface standards. Families include SX, GX, TX, MX, with a wide variety of feature set and performance options to align best solutions to next generation needs. Stratix-10MX family feature integrated 3.25GB to 16GB of High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), providing up to 512GB/s throughput while significantly reducing overall solution size and providing added reliability through industry leading integration. Stratix-10SX devices contain an integrated 64-bit ARM Cortex-A53 APU complex and complete software support and software (GPOS and RTOS) development acceleration tools.

Intel Stratix-10 series devices also include production devices with transceivers capable of data rates up to 58 Gbps, with seamless switching between PAM4 and NRZ operation, as well as up to 144 full-duplex transceiver channels, with the accuracy required for multiple serial protocols such as PCIe 1.1, 2.0, 3.0. (Please email or call for the latest peripheral device interconnect solutions including PCI Express* Gen4 x16.) The inclusion of integrated transceivers in some family members provides a solution that is efficient in both cost and board space for communication tester products. Intel Stratix-10 devices include the embedded memory and LE resources needed for input and output data processing functions, such as framing, BER testing, and clock signal synchronization. Stratix-10 devices also include 100 Gigabit Ethernet MAC and a variety of FEC solutions.

Intel Arria-10® FPGA series include unique innovations such as an embedded dual-core ARM* Cortex*-A9 MPCore* processor. This hard processor system (HPS) includes a rich set of hardened peripherals, and high-performance and secure subsystem. Arria-10 family provides up to 78 full-duplex transceivers with data rates up to 25.78 Gbps chip-to-chip, 12.5 Gbps backplane and up to 1,150K equivalent logic elements (LEs), hardened memory interfaces, and a power-optimized core architecture that comprises redesigned adaptive logic modules (ALMs), variable-precision DSP blocks, distributed memory blocks, and fractional clock synthesis phase-locked loops (PLLs).

The low-cost Intel Cyclone FPGAs are a precise fit for applications that need a lower price per port. A Cyclone device can be used with Intel IP cores, such as the 10/100 Ethernet MAC controller core, to reduce design time. The Nios® II embedded processor can be used to perform some of the control functions within the system. The integration of various discrete devices into a single Intel Cyclone device decreases the number of components on board and also reduces design cost and time. Cyclone devices have a highly efficient device architecture and meet the performance and price requirements of cost-sensitive communication test products. The low-cost Cyclone devices used in combination with Intel IP cores can lead to shortened development cycles for faster time to market and significant cost savings.

Intel MAX10 is also an ideal solution for system bus translation and complex power supply system management, including pre-verified power management solutions from the Intel Enpirion® family of integrated high-efficiency point-of-load power management solutions, designed and verified specific to all Intel PSG FPGA devices.

Intel offers a variety of IP cores that can be utilized in tester equipment. High-speed chip-to-chip interfaces such as SFI, SPI3, SPI4.x, SGMII, and XAUI, and memory interfaces such as DDR3 and RLDRAM III can be downloaded from Intel FPGA IP Portfolio website.

400GE Tester With 8x56Gbps Transceivers

Communications testers, such as wired and wireless communications test systems cover a range of "standards specific" test solutions, which require the latest leading edge performance capabilities to enable new emerging communications industries such as 400G/800G Ethernet or 5G Wireless Communications test systems.

Built on the award-winning Stratix architecture, Stratix-10 series devices include the embedded memory and LE resources needed for input and output pin processing functions, such as signal synchronization and timing analysis. The Intel Stratix device series integrates up to 60 58Gbps transceivers (or 120 NRZ transceivers) with up to an additional 24 28.3Gbps and 17.4Gbps transceivers, with the signal integrity required for serial protocols such as PCIe-Gen3. Stratix-10 devices also include 100 Gigabit Ethernet MAC and a variety of FEC solutions for Gigabit Ethernet applications. (Please email or call for the latest peripheral device interconnect solutions including PCI Express* Gen4 x16, and Intel PSG solutions roadmap for next generation Gigabit Transceivers, High End FEC solutions, and massive TeraFLOPS DSP solutions.)

Semiconductor automated test equipment (ATE) consists of various instruments or cards used for testing memory, digital, mixed signal, and system-on-a-chip (SoC) components, both at the wafer and packaged stages. Driven by the demand in the consumer, computing, and communication markets, these test systems continue to evolve. To keep pace with innovation in the semiconductor industry, today's ATE products must provide more functionality at higher speeds than ever before.

Programmable logic plays an important role in the development of ATE products by providing flexibility and scalability. Functions such as timing accuracy, memory control, digital signal processing (DSP) analysis, high-speed I/O capability, and jitter compliance are all served by programmable logic. Figure below shows a typical instrument card in an ATE system. With the increasing complexity of ATE products, more intellectual property (IP) continues to be integrated within the programmable logic.

Intel offers a variety of IP cores that can be utilized in ATE products. Memory interfaces such as DDR3, DDR4 and RLDRAM III, or high-speed bus interfaces such as PCI Express* (PCIe-gen3), SFI, and SerialLite (a lightweight, high-bandwidth, point-to-point data protocol) can be downloaded from the Intel FPGA IP Portfolio website. (Please email or call for the latest peripheral device interconnect solutions including PCI Express* Gen4 x16.)

Typical ATE Test Station

Solutions

The feature-rich architecture of the Stratix-10®, Arria-10®, and Cyclone® device families provides an excellent solution for ATE production. These device families give system designers flexibility, performance, integration, and design resources that are not available in any other device solution. These silicon products, combined with Intel's extensive portfolio of IP cores, provide designers with industry-leading solutions for the development of next-generation ATE platforms.

Stratix-10 series FPGAs 2.75M equivalent logic elements (LEs), up to 229 Mb of embedded memory, high-performance, variable-precision digital signal processing (DSP) blocks with up to 11,520 18x19 high-performance multipliers, and flexible I/Os for most popular interface standards. Families include SX, GX, TX, MX, with a wide variety of feature set and performance options to align best solutions to next generation needs. Stratix-10MX family feature integrated 3.25GB to 16GB of High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), providing up to 512GB/s throughput while significantly reducing overall solution size and providing added reliability through industry leading integration. Stratix-10SX devices contain an integrated 64-bit ARM Cortex-A53 APU complex and complete software support and software (GPOS and RTOS) development acceleration tools.

Built on the award-winning Stratix architecture, Stratix-10 series devices include the embedded memory and LE resources needed for input and output pin processing functions, such as signal synchronization and timing analysis. The Intel Stratix device series integrates up to 60 58 Gbps transceivers (or 120 NRZ transceivers) with up to an additional 24 28.3 and 17.4 Gbps transceivers, with the signal integrity required for serial protocols such as PCIe Gen3. (Please email or call for the latest peripheral device interconnect solutions including PCI Express* Gen4 x16, and Intel PSG solutions roadmap for next generation Gigabit Transceivers, High End FEC solutions, and massive TeraFLOPS DSP solutions). Stratix-10 devices also include 100 Gigabit Ethernet MAC and a variety of FEC solutions.

Intel Arria-10® FPGA series include unique innovations such as an embedded dual-core ARM* Cortex*-A9 MPCore* processor. This hard processor system (HPS) includes a rich set of hardened peripherals, and high-performance and secure subsystem. Arria-10 family provides up to 78 full-duplex transceivers with data rates up to 25.78 Gbps chip-to-chip, 12.5 Gbps backplane and up to 1,150K equivalent logic elements (LEs), hardened memory interfaces, and a power-optimized core architecture that comprises redesigned adaptive logic modules (ALMs), variable-precision DSP blocks, distributed memory blocks, and fractional clock synthesis phase-locked loops (PLLs).

Intel offers a variety of IP cores that can be utilized in tester equipment. Chip-to-chip interfaces and memory interfaces such as DDR3, DDR4 and RLDRAM III can be downloaded from Intel FPGA IP Portfolio website.

For applications requiring a lower price per pin, the Intel Cyclone FPGA series of high-density, low-cost devices are a precise fit. Cyclone devices can be used in conjunction with Intel IP cores, such as the Nios® II embedded processor, to implement control functions that significantly shorten design time. This embedded IP function can shorten development cycles, lower costs, and yield faster time to market. The integration of various peripherals into a single Intel Cyclone series device reduces the number of discrete components on boards, along with related design costs and time, leading to significant cost savings. With a highly efficient device architecture, Intel Cyclone series devices meet the performance and integration needs of ATE products.

Test & Measurement Instrumentation

General-purpose test instruments consist of products such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, signal generators, video test equipment, automotive test equipment, and many more. These products are used across multiple applications in environments ranging from labs to manufacturing facilities.

Programmable logic continues to play an important role in general-purpose test instrument development. FPGA flexibility and scalability accelerates time to market and reduces risk. This, coupled with the rapid advances in integration capability, have made programmable logic the new centerpiece of both hardware and software development teams.

In addition to the use of programmable logic, numerous new circuit structures are emerging as performance requirements and circuit densities increase. Significant use of new buses, often involving high-speed serial data transfer, and the commonplace use of system-on-a-chip (SoC) and system-on-a-programmable-chip (SOPC) devices have been pervasive in the industry. Now designers must deal with very complex design and circuit structures, making in-circuit debug harder and, at the same time, even more necessary.

Typical FPGA Usage in Portable Oscilloscopes

Typical FPGA Usage in Video Test Equipment

Solutions

The feature-rich architecture of the Stratix-10®, Arria-10®, and Cyclone® device families provides an excellent solution for General Purpose Test Instrumentation. These device families give system designers flexibility, performance, integration, and design resources that are not available in any other device solution. These silicon products, combined with Intel's extensive portfolio of IP cores, provide designers with industry-leading solutions for the development of next-generation ATE platforms as well as high bandwidth video testing platforms.

Stratix-10 series FPGAs 2.75M equivalent logic elements (LEs), up to 229 Mb of embedded memory, high-performance, variable-precision digital signal processing (DSP) blocks with up to 11,520 18x19 high-performance multipliers, and flexible I/Os for most popular interface standards. Families include SX, GX, TX, MX, with a wide variety of feature set and performance options to align best solutions to next generation needs. Stratix-10MX family feature integrated 3.25GB to 16GB of High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), providing up to 512GB/s throughput while significantly reducing overall solution size and providing added reliability through industry leading integration. Stratix-10SX devices contain an integrated 64-bit ARM Cortex-A53 APU complex and complete software support and software (GPOS and RTOS) development acceleration tools.

Built on the award-winning Stratix architecture, Stratix-10 series devices include the embedded memory and LE resources needed for input and output pin processing functions, such as signal synchronization and timing analysis. The Intel Stratix device series integrates up to 60 58Gbps transceivers (or 120 NRZ transceivers) with up to an additional 24 28.3Gbps and 17.4Gbps transceivers, with the signal integrity required for serial protocols such as PCIe Gen3. (Please email or call for the latest peripheral device interconnect solutions including PCI Express* Gen4 x16, and Intel PSG solutions roadmap for next generation Gigabit Transceivers, High End FEC solutions, and massive TeraFLOPS DSP solutions). Stratix-10 devices also include 100 Gigabit Ethernet MAC and a variety of FEC solutions.

Intel Arria-10® FPGA series include unique innovations such as an embedded dual-core ARM* Cortex*-A9 MPCore* processor. This hard processor system (HPS) includes a rich set of hardened peripherals, and high-performance and secure subsystem. Arria-10 family provides up to 78 full-duplex transceivers with data rates up to 25.78 Gbps chip-to-chip, 12.5 Gbps backplane and up to 1,150K equivalent logic elements (LEs), hardened memory interfaces, and a power-optimized core architecture that comprises redesigned adaptive logic modules (ALMs), variable-precision DSP blocks, distributed memory blocks, and fractional clock synthesis phase-locked loops (PLLs).

Intel offers a variety of IP cores that can be utilized in tester equipment. Chip-to-chip interfaces and memory interfaces such as DDR3, DDR4 and RLDRAM III can be downloaded from Intel FPGA IP Portfolio website.

For applications requiring a lower price per pin, the Intel Cyclone FPGA series of high-density, low-cost devices are a precise fit. Cyclone devices can be used in conjunction with Intel IP cores, such as the Nios® II embedded processor, to implement control functions that significantly shorten design time. This embedded IP function can shorten development cycles, lower costs, and yield faster time to market. The integration of various peripherals into a single Intel Cyclone series device reduces the number of discrete components on boards, along with related design costs and time, leading to significant cost savings. With a highly efficient device architecture, Intel Cyclone series devices meet the performance and integration needs of ATE products.

Intel offers a variety of IP cores that can be utilized in tester equipment. Chip-to-chip interfaces such as SFI, SPI3, SPI4.x, SGMII, and XAUI, and memory interfaces such as DDR3 and RLDRAM III can be downloaded from Intel.

Modular Test Systems

Designers of general-purpose test and measurement equipment like oscilloscopes and logic analyzers have historically implemented custom designed hardware. With growing demand for lower costs and higher flexibility, Modular Instruments based on PXI (PCI extensions for instrumentation) are becoming increasingly popular. These systems share hardware resources (e.g. chassis, power supply, CPU), and utilize user-defined software to make custom measurements and support emerging standards.  

For your application-specific needs, you can now:

• Easily implement modular PCIe-based function boards using the Intel FPGA IP for PCI Express.
• Integrate multiple serializer/deserializer (SERDES) channels up to 12.5 Gbps, within Stratix® series FPGAs
• Rapidly create custom functionality and interfaces using Intel Stratix and Intel Arria® series FPGAs and the Intel Quartus® Prime design software

Modular-Based Systems

Portable

Portable handheld-sized devices can implement field test equipment, such as multimeters, handheld scopes, and automotive diagnostic devices.

These portable devices have been implemented using a host of discrete components and a CPU. However, it takes more time and resources to implement these custom hardware platforms, resulting in:

• Wasteful efforts developing standard blocks instead of custom application blocks
• Obsolescence risk from multiple discrete ASSP and CPU components
• Integration risk, cost, and inflexibility of ASICs

With the latest Intel Quartus® Prime development tools, DSP Builder, for Intel FPGAs, Nios® II embedded processor, and programmable hardware capabilities of Intel Cyclone®, Intel Arria®, and Intel Stratix® series FPGAs, you can:

• Integrate multiple ASSP devices and the CPU into a single application-independent FPGA
• Implement independent functions into multiple Nios II processors on a single FPGA
• Couple coprocessing logic with a Nios II processor to "supercharge" functional performance
• Easily integrate all the application-specific and standard intellectual property (IP) functionality with SOPC Builder

Additional productivity benefits include:

• Reusing previous engineering IP development efforts
• Leveraging additional Intel FPGA and partner IP blocks
• Separating application-specific analog I/O and sensor circuits onto modular daughter cards

Figure below shows how a Intel Cyclone, Intel Arria, or Intel Stratix series FPGA implements a system-on-a-programmable-chip (SOPC) using one or more Nios II processors, including custom logic. The user interface, application-specific analog functionality, and network connectivity can be added to complete the portable device.

Portable Testing Devices

Portable testing devices can benefit from the industry famous integrated NIOSII FPGA embedded 32-bit processor. Cyclone FPGAs provide the needed integration for minimizing handheld systems board area while also providing industry leading power efficiency. Arria-10 serves the higher end of the portable segment, where battery power is still of critical importance, but a higher level of system performance is required. With Arria-10, the user can utilize the dual ARM Cortex-A9 APU and subsystem embedded in the SX family to run a rich suite of RTOS as well as a rich GPOS with rich GUI, such as modern Linux kernels. Such integrated features for these FPGAs include processor (NIOSII or Dual ARM Cortex-A9), LPDDR Memory Controllers, Power Efficient DSP, various types of Peripheral Interconnects, Display Drivers, plenty of LVDS I/O and added PCIe functionality. Data acquisition and mainboard functions can be integrated, eliminating multiple board solutions to streamline portable tester mass and size.