“The M-PHY physical layer is essential for the implementation of next-generation mobile computing products, such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops,” said Joel Huloux, president of the MIPI Alliance. “For our members to deliver quality products, it is essential to verify and validate the implementation of the MIPI Alliance specification. We are delighted to see that Agilent is providing new tools for analyzing the UniPro interface.”.
“UFS is extending the reach of cutting-edge memory technology to mobile platforms,” said Mian Quddus, president of the Universal Flash Storage Association (UFSA). “Tools that simplify the validation of these platforms ensure that these designs will reach customers sooner and with greater reliability.”
Today’s mobile computing designs are eclipsing the functionality of desktop PCs. Mobile designers are adding multiple high-speed buses to their designs to handle multiple high-resolution cameras, high-speed peripherals, advanced graphics adapters, and massive memory buffers. This growing demand for bandwidth has driven the expansion of the M-PHY specification to include four-way and 6.0 Gbps options. The U4431A offers up to 16 GB of analysis memory on each path, enabling designers to capture tens of seconds of system traffic, even at these high speeds.
In addition, the Agilent U4431A analyzer offers "Raw Mode," a feature that allows designers to view the time-correlated 8b/10b data underlying each protocol. These states can be displayed as a waveform or in a list, providing insights into how a packet is formed at the physical layer.
This visibility extends across the entire M-PHY protocol stack, enabling error detection from the physical layer to the data link layer and from the transport layers to the high-level application layer. These views allow engineers to unravel data as it travels throughout the entire transmission process.
“Leading silicon manufacturers indicate that their technologies have the potential to make low-cost computing systems available to everyone on the planet,” says Ross Nelson, general manager of Agilent’s Digital Debugging Solutions team. “A tool like Raw Mode will help them gain insights into every corner of their designs, helping them resolve activation issues much faster and allowing them to spend more time developing and optimizing features.”.
The U4431A also offers powerful tools for isolating and deciphering specific events on the bus. Real-time triggering enables fault detection at every protocol layer, filters allow analytical tools to focus on specific traffic types, and traffic overviews and measurement markers help designers understand traffic from full bursts down to nanosecond-resolution details.
The U4431A's AXIe modular foil form factor allows users to analyze multiple M-PHY buses simultaneously. These M-PHY buses can be temporarily mapped to MIPI D-PHY CSI-2 and DSI-1 buses, PCIe®, DDR, and HDMI, or even to high-speed generic logic analyzer modules. Designers can purchase the paths, memory, and protocol support they need today and expand in the future.
The introduction of UFS and UniPro support in the MIPI M-PHY U4431A analyzer marks Agilent's entry into M-PHY protocol analysis. Further announcements throughout this year will focus on SSIC (USB-3 over M-PHY), M-PCIe (PCIe over M-PHY), and CSI-3. These products will expand Agilent's comprehensive M-PHY solutions, including physical layer testing of transmitters and receivers.
The MIPI Alliance is a non-profit organization that operates as an open membership organization. All companies working in the mobile device industry are encouraged to join, including semiconductor, software, and peripheral manufacturers, IP providers, testing laboratories, and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). Currently, nearly 200 member companies are actively involved in the alliance, developing interface specifications that promote consistency across processor and peripheral interfaces, fostering reusability and compatibility between mobile devices.
About the Universal Flash Storage Association (UFSA)
The Universal Flash Storage Association was founded in 2010 as an open professional association to promote the widespread adoption of the UFS standard. The association's mission includes promoting UFS technology and infrastructure, as well as managing product homologation and UFS logo certification.
