PMBus Protocol Validation Suite & Services

PMBus Protocol Validation Suite & Services

DATA SHEET
Download Datasheet - PMBus Protocol Validation Suite Specifications

Product Details

  • Overview
  • Functional Coverage ​
  • Parametric Coverage
  • Features
  • FAQ
Overview

The Power Management Bus (PMBus) is an open standard power-management protocol. This flexible and highly versatile standard allows for communication between devices based on both analog and digital technologies, and provides true interoperability, which will reduce design complexity and shorten time to market for power system designers.

 As a part of product validation, it’s important to validate the product’s conformance against the protocol specification to ensure the interoperability of the product. As the complexity of the protocol and product increases, validation time of the protocol interfaces also increases which in turn reduces the RTM. Performing the protocol conformance testing in traditional way needs lot of time and effort.  ​

Soliton’s PMBus Validation Suite is an off the shelf validation tool using NI’s PXI Platform, which helps to validate the devices’ compliance with timing and electrical specifications of the PMBus protocol. The tool can also validate the devices tolerance to and recovery from a variety of PMBus faults & exceptions and provides a comprehensive set of reports. Users have claimed that, using this automated solution for PMBus Validation has brought down the test time/ validation time from few weeks to a couple of days.  ​

Functional Coverage ​
MODES OF OPERATION
  • 100 kHz​
  • 400 kHz​
  • 1 MHz
FUNCTIONAL TESTS
  • Send Byte​
  • Receive byte​
  • Write Byte/Word​
  • Read Byte/Word​
  • Write 32/64 Protocol​
  • Read 32/64 Protocol​
  • Block Write​
  • Block Read​
  • Process Call​
  • Block Write-Block Read Process Call​
PROTOCOL FEATURES
  • Clock Low Extending​
  • Packet Error Checking (PEC)​
  • Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) Commands​
  • Power-on Reset (POR)​
  • Broadcast Address​
  • Group Command Protocol​
  • Extended Command Protocol​
  • Zone Write and Read
FAULT TESTS
  • Send additional clock bit​
  • Skip clock bit​
  • Skip START / STOP/ RP-START/ BYTE/ACK​
  • Send NACK​
  • Send ACK for last Read Byte​
  • Send invalid Address / Command / Data Byte​
  • Send PEC with invalid CRC value​
  • Unsupported Command Code​
  • Data out of Range​
Parametric Coverage
TIMING VALIDATION
  • fSMB (SMBus Clock Frequency)​
  • tBUF (Bus Free Time between a Stop and Start Condition)
  • tHD;STA (Hold Time (repeated) Start Condition)​
  • tSU;STA (Setup Time for a Repeated Start Condition) ​
  • tSU;STO (Setup time for STOP Condition)​
  • tHD;DAT (Data Hold Time)​
  • tSU;DAT (Data Setup Time)​
  • tTIMEOUT (Detect Clock Low Timeout)​
  • tLOW (Low Period of the SCL Clock)​
  • tHIGH (High Period of the SCL Clock)​
  • tR (Rise Time of SCL/SDA Signal)*​
  • tF (Fall Time of SCL/SDA signal)*​
  • tSPIKE (Pulsewidth of spikes to be filtered)​
  • tLOW:SEXT (Cumulative Clock Low Extend Time – Target)​
  • tLOW:MEXT (Cumulative Clock Low Extend Time – Master)​
  • tPOR (Time taken for device to be operational after POR)​
ELECTRICAL IO VALIDATION
  • VIL (Low level input voltage)​
  • VIH (High level input voltage)​
  • Vhys (Hysteresis of Schmitt Trigger inputs)​
  • VOL (Low level output voltage)​
Features
Features of PMBus Protocol Validation
  • ISO 9001 Certified Product​
  • Simple, Flexible, Modular, and Light Bench Setup​
  • Easy to use PMBus Protocol Exerciser and Debugger to perform various PMBus transactions with controllable timings/voltage levels​
  • Protocol compliance testing with zero coding​
  • Comprehensive reporting feature to report the test pass/fail reports​
  • Reproduce failure cases in a few clicks​
  • Easy to build and test custom device-specific tests​
  • Automation Capability (DLLs/APIs) from external programming environment/automation frameworks like LabVIEW, C#, Python, TestStand, etc​
  • Leverage Soliton’s experience in protocol validation and debugging
FAQ
Do I always need to test for full PMBus compliance?​

No, this is not always the case. If your customer has a very narrow use case, or your chip’s PMBus IP is the same as a previously tested chip, then it is possible that you do not need the extensive validation that our service/suite provides.​

How is this product different from existing Protocol Exercisers, Debugger or Analyzers?​

This product is mainly used for performing functional and electrical compliance validation of the PMBus devices (post-silicon validation) whereas the other existing protocol exercisers, debuggers, or analyzers are used for performing basic functional tests during the device bring up​ ​

Can't I build a home-grown solution instead?​

While this is certainly an option, we expect that it will take a highly experienced automation engineer between 3-6 months to create a first version of a similar tool. To create a robust and flexible tool takes experience, and we have been improving this tool over the last 3 years since its release. We believe it is worth the cost to skip the learning curve and avail of our comprehensive report or validation suite.​

What else can I do with NI's PXI chassis/modules?​

The PXIe-657x module is a general-purpose programmable pattern generator and acquisition device with deep memory. It can be used for other protocol validation tools from us. Also, it can be programmed using LabVIEW or other programming languages to emulate any synchronous digital protocol. NI’s PXI chassis supports high bandwidth and synchronization-friendly control and read back from a huge variety of digital, analog, and special-purpose modules in a compact form factor.​ ​

What is the interposer board referenced in the system diagram?​

The Protocol Validation Suite requires custom external circuitry for signal conditioning. Each purchase comes with a complimentary interposer board, which is a separate PCB designed and delivered by us. ​

What oscilloscope models are supported?​

The Protocol Validation Suite supports any NI scope by default. The tool has a flexible architecture that allows the support of other oscilloscope models. We can help you in building the oscilloscope plugin for one of your oscilloscopes​

What type of documentation and training will be available for each solution?

User manuals, Getting started guides, and tutorial videos are available for each solution and can be easily accessed from within the product. Additionally, we will provide short live training sessions upon request.

Whether the tool can be used for validation out of box?​

Yes, The tool comes with out of box test scripts which can be used for validation after entering the device specific details​

Why was PMBus Master- PMBus Slave terms are renamed to PMBus Controller PMBus-Target?​

As a part of terminology replacement efforts, we have deprecated the Master-Slave terminologies and replaced them with Controller-Target terminologies in our documents. When the PMBus Organization finalizes a different terminology, we will be updated new terminology ​

The high level architecture of the Soliton PMBus Validation Suite based on NI’s PXIe 657x Platform​
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The high level architecture of the Soliton PMBus Validation Suite based on NI’s PXIe 657x Platform​
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The high level architecture of the Soliton PMBus Validation Suite based on NI’s PXIe 657x Platform​
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Technical Documentation

Soliton’s PMBus Validation Suite is an off the shelf validation tool using NI’s PXI platform, which helps to validate the devices’ compliance with the timing and electrical specifications of the PMBus protocol. It contains the below components.

  • NI PXIe 657x – Digital Pattern Generation Card with the PXIe Chassis setup 
  • Soliton PVS Interposer Board ​
  • Oscilloscope – For performing voltage measurements ​
  • Soliton PMBus Validation Suite Software compatible with Windows OS (Win 10) ​
For more details, download the datasheet
Download Datasheet - PMBus Protocol Validation Suite Specifications

Hardware

Soliton’s PMBus Validation suite is based on the NI – PXI Platform and the NI part configuration lists the hardware required to perform the validation​

The Solution also contains a Soliton Interposer Board for signal conditioning purposes.

The DUT can be connected through the Berg Connector​
The DUT can be connected through the Berg Connector​

Support & Training

For any queries, contact us at [email protected]. We will respond within 1 Business day.

 

TYPICAL USER BASE FOR PMBus VALIDATION SUITE

 

  • Design Engineers, Test Engineers, Post Silicon Validation Engineers, Engineering Managers, Validation Managers, Lab Managers, etc from the Semiconductor Industry
  • Post Silicon validation of Chips with PMBus interface​
  • Semiconductor Chip Manufacturers making PMBus Devices​
  • Product Manufactures making products with PMBus interface​
  • AC/DC Server Power Supplies, Point of Loads (PoL), DC-DC Power Modules, SMPS Unit Manufacturers who need to test against PMBus specifications​

 

OTHER PROTOCOL VALIDATION SERVICES OFFERED BY SOLITON

 

I3C Protocol Validation   SPI Protocol Validation   SPMI Protocol Validation   RFFE Protocol Validation

 

UART Protocol Validation   SMBus Protocol Validation   I2C Protocol Validation