Agilent Technologies Inc. has introduced the industry’s first software solution for decoding the universal flash storage protocol on oscilloscopes. The new protocol decoder provides design and validation engineers with a fast, easy way to validate and debug their UFS interfaces.

UFS is a flash storage specification for mobile devices, smartphones, digital cameras and other consumer electronics. The standard was developed by the JEDEC Solid State Technology Association. The electrical interface for UFS uses the MIPI M-PHY and UniPro specifications, developed by the MIPITM Alliance, a global standards body.

Agilent’s N8818A UFS protocol decoder is designed to run on Infiniium 90000A, 90000 X-Series and 90000 Q-Series oscilloscopes. It decodes protocol packets for the JEDEC’s UFS v1.1 specification. It can be used with Agilent’s N8808A UniPro protocol decoder to view both UFS and UniPro protocols at the same time. The software supports MIPI M-PHY speeds of up to 5.8Gbps, which these protocols use for their electrical layers. R&D design teams can use the software to address their start-up debugging and validation needs.

“We understand our customers’ need for a tool to decode their UFS packets,” says vice president and general manager of Agilent Oscilloscope products division vice president and general manager Jay Alexander.

“Collaboration with early adopters has enabled us to develop decoding software for the UFS protocol. Our decoder is extremely helpful to UFS designers for validating and ensuring their designs work as they expect.”

The software supports:

Correlated protocol decoding information with analog waveforms.
Symbol, packet, frame and payload detail of the protocols.
High-speed (HS-BURST) and low-speed pulse width modulation (PWM-BURST) transmission modes.
Cyclical redundancy checks on the packets.
Search capability for various frames, sequences and errors.

When engineers use Agilent N8818A UFS and N8808A UniPro protocol decoders on Infiniium 90000 Q-Series oscilloscopes, they get industry-leading, real-time bandwidth of up to 33GHz on four channels, with the only available 30GHz probing system. With the lowest noise and lowest jitter measurement floor, Q-Series scopes ensure superior measurement accuracy.

Used together with N2809A PrecisionProbe software for the 90000 Q-Series oscilloscope, the software gives engineers increased confidence in their UFS product performance and helps them increase their design margins. The Agilent U7249A transmitter conformance software package is also available for electrical validation of the MIPI M-PHY physical layer.