Keysight Technologies has introduced a protocol testing platform for PCI Express (PCIe) 7.0, targeting engineers developing high-speed interconnects for AI infrastructure and data centres.
The solution supports testing at data rates of up to 128 gigatransfers per second (GT/s), helping engineers identify protocol errors, investigate link establishment problems and assess interoperability before devices and systems reach production.
PCIe 7.0 doubles the raw data rate of its predecessor, PCIe 6.0, to meet growing demand for bandwidth as AI workloads expand. The technology is expected to play a role in rack-scale architectures connecting graphics processing units (GPUs), accelerators, switches, memory and storage.
However, higher data rates and increasingly complex system architectures make it more difficult to establish reliable connections and verify protocol behaviour. Engineers must identify problems with link training, data encoding and transaction handling before they lead to redesigns or delay development schedules.
Keysight’s platform combines a protocol analyser, an exerciser, a test backplane and dedicated analysis software. The integrated system is designed to provide visibility into link training and status state machine (LTSSM) transitions, FLIT-based encoding and transaction layer packet activity.
The company says its signal integrity architecture enables engineers to capture protocol traces without manually tuning the analyser, reducing the time needed to obtain useful measurements.
The platform is intended to support development from initial silicon bring-up through protocol validation, interoperability assessment and compliance testing. It also supports backward compatibility, allowing engineers to test new architectures while retaining existing test investments.
Keysight has collaborated with electronic design automation company Synopsys to validate PCIe 7.0 intellectual property against the new test equipment.
“Establishing a reliable PCIe 7.0 link at 128 GT/s between production silicon and protocol test equipment is a key interoperability milestone,” said Neeraj Paliwal, Senior Vice-President of Silicon IP Product Management at Synopsys.
He said the validation of Synopsys’ PCIe 7.0 IP with Keysight’s platform would help customers develop next-generation AI and data centre systems.
Joachim Peerlings, Vice-President of Network and Data Centre Solutions at Keysight, said interoperability would be as important as increased bandwidth in deploying PCIe 7.0.
