With the new platform, the company has expanded its line of Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) and Serial ATA (SATA) protocol verification systems.

The new Sierra M6-2 is a compact two-port version of Sierra M6-4 four-port platform, and incorporates all the analysis and the test capability of the larger unit in a smaller, more cost effective package. A SATA compliance test suite is also available. As with other Sierra systems, the customers can opt for specific features to match their test needs and budgets, and protect their investment with addition of new capabilities as their needs change.

The outstanding market acceptance of the SAS and SATA protocols is increasing demand for protocol test tools,” stated Kevin Kearney, LeCroy PSG manager of Storage Protocol Products. “With 6G capable devices on the horizon, a new generation of test tools is required. The LeCroy Sierra platforms were designed to meet the full range of protocol and performance testing at the new higher speeds.”

“The LeCroy SATA Protocol Test platform is one of the key elements in our validation environment that helps ensure the DesignWare SATA IP is of high quality and adheres to the latest SATA specification,” stated Ed Bard, senoir director of marketing for Digital and Memory IP at Synopsys. “Utilizing the analyzer and emulator functions in addition to our already extensive verification process enables designers to integrate the DesignWare SATA IP into their high performance mass storage SoCs with less risk and improved time to results.”

The new Sierra M6-2 comes with all of the trace views and the analytical tools that LeCroy customers rely on. Both the SAS and SATA traffic can be captured and decoded for problem identification and the resolution. The captured traces can be viewed in various ways to suit the analysis being performed. The common protocol errors are automatically detected and clearly displayed. The new Sierra M6-2 also offers powerful search tools and an extensive range of the statistical reports incorporating command completion performance, bus utilization, primitive statistics, and command statistics. Traces captured with the new Sierra M6-2 can also be showed and analyzed on any PC system using the new SAS Protocol Suite software, which offers the ability for experts in the home office to back up field technicians in troubleshooting field issues.

The new Sierra platforms feature native physical layers, which provide many benefits over the implementations found in other 6G test solutions, incorporating optimized lock time, which is essential for capturing the SATA power management sequences. The new Sierra M6-2 supports trace memory buffers up to 8 GB, and features SATA-style bus interfaces for quick and simple connections. The highly portable platform measures 12.5” x 11” x 2” and weighs only 5.4 lbs.

LeCroy’s new protocol test and verification products have been at the forefront of the SAS and SATA development. All the company’s protocol analyzers feature a hierarchical display, real-time statistics, protocol traffic summaries, detailed error reports, powerful scripting, and the ability to create user-defined test reports that enable developers to troubleshoot intricate problems and finish their projects on time.

LeCroy is a US-based provider of high-performance oscilloscopes, serial data analyzers, and global communications protocol test solutions.