DATA SHEET
RFFE Protocol Validation Suite - Specifications* Datasheet - RFFE Protocol Validation Suite
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Product Details
- Overview
- Functional Coverage
- Parametric Coverage
- Features
- FAQ
Overview
The MIPI RF Front End Control Interface, MIPI RFFE, is the world’s de-facto standard interface for control of radio frequency (RF) front-end (FE) subsystems. It delivers fast, agile, semi-automated, and comprehensive control of the complex RF subsystem environment, which has rigorous performance requirements and can include up to 19 components per bus instance (up to 15 slave devices and up to four master devices), including power amplifiers, LNAs, antenna tuners, filters, and switches.
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, the validation time of the protocol interfaces also increases which in turn reduces the RTM. Performing the protocol conformance testing in the traditional way needs a lot of time and effort.
Soliton’s RFFE Slave 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 MIPI RFFE protocol. The tool can also validate the devices tolerance to and recovery from a variety of RFFE faults & exceptions and provides a comprehensive set of reports. Users have claimed that, using this automated solution for RFFE Slave Validation has brought down the test time/ validation time from a few weeks to a couple of days.
Functional Coverage
Frequency Ranges
- Standard Frequency Range (26MHz)
- Extended Frequency Range (52MHz)
FUNCTIONAL TESTS
- Register 0 Write
- Register Write
- Register Read
- Extended Register Write
- Extended Register Read
- Extended Register Write Long
- Extended Register Read Long
- Communication using GSID
FAULT TESTS
- Skip SSC (Sequence Start Condition)
- Skip a bit in Command/Address/Data Frame
- Send Invalid Command/Address/Data Frame
- Send additional bit in Command/Address/Data Frame
- Skip Parity Bit in Command/Address/Data Frame
- Induce Parity Error in Command/Address/Data Frame
- Send an incomplete Command/Address/Data Fram
- Send an incomplete command sequence
- Induce Bus Timeout with SDATA & SCLK pulled LOW
- Induce IO contention fault.
Parametric Coverage
Timing Parameters
- FSCLK SCL Clock Frequency
- TSCLKIH SCLK High Period
- TSCLKIL SCLK Low Period
- TSDATAZ SDATA Drive Release Time
- TSU SDATA Setup Time
- TH SDATA Hold Time
- TSSCHigh SSC High Time
- TSSCLow SSC Low Time
- TSCLKITR_Rise* SCLK Rise Time
- TSCLKITR_Fall* SCLK Fall Time
- TSDATAOTR_Rise* SDATA Rise Time
- TSDATAOTR_Fall* SDATA Fall Time
- TPD* Slave SDATA Valid Time
- Tglitch Pulse width of glitch to filter
- TVIO-RST VIO Supply Reset Timing
- TSIGOL Input Signal Reset Delay Time
* Can measured using external Oscilloscope only
Electrical IO Parameters
- VTP Positive Going Input Threshold Voltage
- VTN Negative Going Input Threshold Voltage
- VH Schmitt Trigger Inputs Hysteresis
- VOL* Output Low Level
- VOH * Output High Level
- VVIO-RST VIO Supply Reset Voltage Level
Features
Features of RFFE Protocol Validation
- Simple, Flexible, Modular, and Light Bench Setup
- Easy to use RFFE Protocol Exerciser and Debugger to perform various RFFE transactions with controllable timings/voltage levels
- Protocol compliance testing with zero coding
- Comprehensive reporting feature to report the test pass/fail reports
- Generates Full Compliance reports in less than 2 hours
- Reproduce failure cases in a few clicks
- Easy to build and test custom device-specific tests
- Automation Capability from external programming environment/automation frameworks like LabVIEW, C#, Python, TestStand, etc
- Leverage Soliton’s experience in protocol validation and debugging
FAQ
What kind of engagement models is offered for RFFE Validation?
We offer 2 engagement models. In the First mode, the user can purchase a license of the RFFE Slave Validation Suite and do the validation inhouse. In the second mode, the user can send us 3 DUT's, we will do the validation and send the test reports in 3 working days.
Do I always need to test for full RFFE compliance?
No, this is not always the case. If your customer has a very narrow use case, or your chip’s RFFE 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.
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 the 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 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 6570 module is a general-purpose programmable pattern generator and acquisition device with deep memory. It can be programmed using LabVIEW or other programming languages to emulate any synchronous digital protocol with 5ns resolution and 39ps line skewing resolution. 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 version of MIPI spec is supported?
Currently, the tool supports MIPI RFFE version 2.1
Can I build custom tests on top of RFFE protocol?
The tool comes with a flexible test editor that allows the user to create custom test cases using the RFFE functions provided.
Whether the tool can be readily used for validation?
Yes, The tool comes with readily available test scripts that can be used for validation after entering the device-specific details.
Technical Documentation
Soliton’s RFFE Slave 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 MIPI RFFE 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 RFFE Slave Validation Suite Software compatible with Windows OS (Win 10)
For more details, download the datasheet
RFFE Protocol Validation Suite - Specifications* Datasheet - RFFE Protocol Validation Suite
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Hardware
Soliton’s RFFE Slave 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 Connection Details of the board is given below
Support & Training
For any queries, contact us at [email protected]. We will respond within 1 Business day
*Please note that this product is in the alpha stage.