Vanguard CompactPCI Networked Bus Analyzer, Exerciser, Protocol Checker & Compliance Checker for CompactPCI

The Vanguard CompactPCI Networked Bus Analyzer is a complete solution for PCI / PCI-X analysis, exercising, protocol detection, and compliance checking. This CompactPCI analyzer includes a 10/100 Mbit/s Ethernet interface, taking the power and flexibility found in VMETRO's range of Bus Analyzers to unprecedented levels of productivity.

The Vanguard CompactPCI supports PCI and PCI-X protocol and signaling. Both the PCI and CompactPCI form factors share a common hardware module, called the SAM (State Analyzer Module) module, which is interchangeable between the PCI and CompactPCI carrier boards. The Vanguard CompactPCI can behave as a peripheral card or system controller. The bus analyzer is controlled from a PC running Windows and VMETRO's BusView graphical user interface or an Application Programming Interface (API).

State Analyzer
The State Analyzer of the Vanguard CompactPCI captures and displays 64-bit or 32-bit PCI-X/PCI bus activity up to 133 MHz with highly advanced, user-friendly triggering, filtering and counting capabilities. To provide optimum bus analysis for a given problem, the state analyzer offers a choice of three sampling modes, i.e. Clock Mode, Transfer Mode and Standard Mode.

Exercisers
The two Exerciser versions (basic and enhanced) available for the Vanguard CompactPCI are flexible and user-friendly. The exercisers allow concurrent operation of two DMA engines, a target memory with I/O and memory spaces, and a command executer. A flexible script feature allows test scripts to be made and tasks to be automated.

Protocol Checker
The Vanguard CompactPCI features an optional protocol checker for PCI-X and PCI. This versatile feature automatically detects up to 71 PCI-X and 45 PCI protocol errors, helping the user to track down bus hardware errors without the need to understand the nature of the problem. The protocol checker can run in the background when other analyzer functions of the Vanguard CompactPCI are active. As an example, the state analyzer, and the bus utilization statistics can all be active at the same time while the protocol checker runs in the background, screening the bus for errors. If the protocol checker is used as the trigger source for the analyzer(s), the state and timing analyzers will then provide a comprehensive picture of the bus activity around the point when an error was found, thus aiding the user in identifying and correcting the problem.