SMBus (Signal Management Bus) Protocol Validation

Soliton’s SMBus validation Suite can generate a full-fledged timing, voltage, clock stretch behavior and fault tolerance report for the SMBus interface on a chip. The solution can skew bus timing parameters, sweep bus voltage levels, verify and measure clock stretching, induce bus timeout, induce spikes/glitches, induce packet formation faults and measure bus timing parameters. Customers can also ship 3 DUT boards containing their desired slave device to Soliton Technologies and we will characterize the DUT and send the customer a comprehensive SMBus Validation Report within a cycle time of 1 week.

Soliton's SMBus Protocol Validation generates a full fledged timing, voltage, clock stretch behavior and fault tolerance report for the SMBUS interface on a chip

SMBus Test Features:

  1. Ability to configure and sweep each bus timing parameter from the Min to the Max range

    FSMB – Operating Frequency
    TLOW – Clock low period
    THIGH – Clock high period
    THD:DAT – Data hold time
    TSU:DAT – Data setup time
    TBUF – Bus free time between Stop and Start Condition
    THD:STA – Hold time after (Repeated) Start Condition
    TSU:STA – Repeated Start Condition setup time
    TSU:STO – Stop Condition setup time
    TTIMEOUT – Detect clock low timeout

  2. Supported data transfer formats

    – Send Byte
    – Receive byte
    – Write Byte
    – Read Byte
    – Write Word
    – Read Word
    – Block Write
    – Block Read
    – Process Call
    – Block Write Block Read Process Call

  3. Configurable Packet Error Checking (PEC) mechanism
  4. Support for programmable bus voltage levels

    VIH – HIGH-level input voltage

  5. Sweep and measure Rise time and Fall time

    TF – Clock/Data Fall Time
    TR – Clock/Data Rise Time

  6. Ability to induce faults in the communication

    – Skip a clock bit
    – Send additional clock bit
    – Skip START/STOP/RP-START/BYTE/ACK
    – Send NACK instead of ACK for a Read Byte
    – Send ACK instead of NACK for last Read Byte
    – Send incorrect PEC byte
    – Send invalid Data byte

  7. Ability to detect and allow clock stretching by the device.

    Ability to stretch the Clock low to induce clock stretching and bus timeout in SMBus I2C Protocol

  8. Ability to stretch the Clock low to induce clock stretching and bus timeout
  9. Measures cumulative clock stretching time

    TLOW:SEXT – Cumulative clock low extend time (slave device)
    TLOW:MEXT – Cumulative clock low extend time (master device)

TYPICAL USER BASE FOR SMBus VALIDATION SUITE

    • Semiconductor Chip Manufacturers making SMBus Slave Devices
    • SMPS Manufacturers looking for a tool for PMBus Compliance, PMBus Validation, IPMI Validation, IPMB Validation, SMPS Interface Validation, SMPS Protocol Validation or SMPS Digital validation, ATCA Validation, SMPS testing
    • Those interested in NVRAM and SSD SMBus Validation or NVM Express Validation used by Solid State Drives and Non-Volatile Memories
    • Those interested in NVRAM Testing and NVRAM Validation
    • Those interested in MCTP Endpoint Validation

OTHER PROTOCOL VALIDATION SERVICES OFFERED BY SOLITON

Please contact [email protected] for more details.