When it comes to digital protocols, if there is one term that resonates with every validation engineer, it is protocol compliance testing. Despite being symbolized by hours of testing and immense manual effort, compliance testing continues to hold its importance when it comes to testing digital protocols since it ensures interoperability between the devices. With the complexity of protocols continuing to increase, it becomes more imperative to test compliance to ensure complete interoperability, significantly increasing the importance of compliance testing.
The validation engineering team generally tests the DUT (Device Under Test) across PVT (Process, Voltage, Temperature). This has to be executed for the protocol interface as well, to ensure that the interface communication does not break, and the data transfer is seamless.
Treading The Old Way
In a traditional style of validation and testing, this process is tedious, and involves a great investment of time and manual effort, not guaranteeing complete compliance all the same. To empathize this better, let us consider testing the device for full Protocol compliance across temperature.
In the conventional style, a validation engineer who uses traditional protocol exercisers or in-house tools, would have to
– Develop the protocol validation logic using Protocol Exerciser / Analyzer and Scope
– Place the DUT (Device Under Test) in the thermal chamber
– Set the temperature of the chamber to the required value for validation
– Execute the protocol validation logic for compliance validation
– Repeat step 3 & 4 for all temperatures
Steps 3 & 4 can be automated, but these would need additional software effort to create the automation APIs, sequencing, executing etc.
In some cases, the execution of these steps might not seem as smooth as it sounds. For example, the creation of APIs, to integrate with your existing infrastructure, can get complex, augmenting the need for better programming. Even after these, it might require additional efforts to make it usable for different programming languages/different environments.
This entire workflow results in the validation engineer spending more time in software programming or waiting for the execution than in protocol validation.
If you would like to validate more and code less, then here is a tool that can help in making this a reality! It is now time for happier validation!
Characterize With Ease through an Out-Of-Box Solution
Soliton’s Protocol Validation Suite is a one-stop solution for all your PVT Characterization needs!
With integrated APIs and out-of-the-box tests, the tool requires only basic configuration and can be easily integrated into the existing infrastructure/validation platform, making the entire process hassle-free.
Programming environments are no longer an issue since the APIs can be called from any programming platform like LV, TS, Python and C#!
To enable new users, the PVS tool is shipped with inbuilt examples, speeding up the onboarding, helping the validation engineer to bring up the automation in no time!
Contrary to the cumbersome workflow earlier, all that the validation engineer must do now is:
– Configure the PVS software
– Connect the hardware as required
– Place the DUT in the Thermal Chamber
– Call the PVS APIs into their respective temperature loops.
– Execute the tests
Validation made easy! Have a look at how the Protocol Validation Suite serves your needs
Given the simple workflow, you can now validate more and code less, helping you bring out your best device faster and more efficiently!
Invest in your next best product
Rapidly advancing sophistications in digital protocols call for immediate solutions that can help accelerate the validation process, ensuring that the best devices reach the user at the right time. The PVS tool is one such solution that can take you one-step closer in making this entire validation process a cakewalk, ensuring effortless happier validation days!
Written by
Saravanakumar Muthusamy
April 4, 2022