Vanguard PMC

Bus Exerciser, Analyzer, Protocol Checker & Compliance Checker for PMC

• PCI-X and PCI Protocol Support
• Networked Bus Analyzer with built-in Ethernet port
• Protocol Checker and Exerciser
• 2-MSample Trace Buffer at 256 bits
• All functions operate concurrently and independently

The Vanguard PMC Bus Analyzer offers users a comprehensive, all-in-one solution to PCI / PCI-X analysis, compliance checking, exercising and protocol detection in a PMC environment. The bus analyzer is built on a 10/100 Mbit/s Ethernet interface and takes Curtiss-Wright’s reputation for powerful, flexible Bus Analyzers to new heights of productivity.

The Vanguard PMC features a fully integrated module designed to handle the size requirements of the PMC form factor. The Vanguard PMC Networked Bus Analyzer is engineered to carry another PMC module on top and allows analysis of the PCI/PCI-X bus without having to remove a PMC module. The PMC P4 connector passes through to serve PMC modules with rear I/O (e.g. to P2ac on VME boards). The Vanguard bus analyzer may be controlled from a PC that is running Windows and BusView graphical user interface or an Application Programming Interface (API).

State Analyzer
Using highly advanced, simple-to-use counting, triggering and counting capabilities, the Vanguard PMC’s State Analyzer identifies and displays 64- or 32-bit PCI-X/PCI bus activity up to 133 MHz. The state analyzer offers users a choice of three sampling modes—Standard, Clock and Transfer—to provide the best possible bus analysis for a particular problem.

Exercisers
The basic and enhanced Exerciser versions offered for the Vanguard PMC are simple to use and flexible, allowing concurrent operation of two DMA engines, a command executor, and a target memory with I/O and memory spaces. Test scripts can be created and tasks automated with the exerciser‘s flexible script feature.

Protocol Checker

An optional protocol checker for PCI-X and PCI can be added to the Vanguard PMC to automatically detect up to 71 PCI-X and 45 PCI protocol errors. This feature helps the user identify bus hardware errors without needing to understand the nature of the errors. The protocol checker is designed to screen for bus errors in the background while the Vanguard PMC’s other analyzer functions are active, for instance, the state analyzer and bus utilization statistics. When the protocol checker is employed as the trigger source for analyzers, the state and timing analyzers will record a snapshot of the bus activity around the point of an identified error--to help the user correct the problem.