Agilent Introduces USB 3.0 SSIC and MIPI CSI-3 Protocol-Decoding Software

By DE Editors

Agilent Technologies introduced new software for decoding USB 3.0 SuperSpeed Inter-Chip (SSIC) and MIPI Camera Serial Interface 3 (CSI-3) protocols on oscilloscopes. The new protocol decoders provide design and validation engineers with a way to validate and debug their SSIC and CSI-3 interfaces.
 
SSIC is used for point-to-point communication between chips using the USB 3.0 protocol. The SSIC standard was developed by the USB-IF standards body, leveraging the MIPI Alliance MIPI M-PHY electrical layer to transfer USB 3.0 protocol. It allows USB 3.0 intellectual property and designs to be adopted into mobile applications.
 
The CSI-3 standard is the next-generation camera interface, developed by the MIPI Alliance to increase performance throughput and enable a greater feature set than the current CSI-2 standard. The CSI-3 interface runs on top of the MIPI UniPro protocol layer as well as the MIPI M-PHY electrical layer.
 
Agilent’s N8819A USB 3.0 SSIC and N8820A MIPI CSI-3 protocol decoders are designed to run on 90000A, 90000 X- and 90000 Q-Series oscilloscopes. They decode protocol packets for the SSIC v1.0 and MIPI CSI-3 v1.0 specifications, respectively. In addition to using the software for start-up debugging, R&D design and validation teams can use the software to snoop at traffic on the interfaces. They also provide accurate timing measurements associated with the protocols, the company says.
 
Engineers can use both protocol decoders on Infiniium 90000 Q-Series oscilloscopes, which deliver real-time bandwidth of up to 33 GHz on four channels, making them suitable for testing devices that use MIPI M-PHY data rates of 5.8 Gbps and for devices with data rates up to 11.6 Gbps.
 
For more information, visit Agilent Technologies.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.