BERT Testers Deliver Comprehensive Solutions

The company's 86130A BitAlyzer and 81250 ParBERT high-speed bit error ratio testers (BERTs) characterize, verify, and test opto-electronic and high-speed digital components as well as multiplexer and demultiplexer integrated circuits. The 86130 BitAlyzer is a general-purpose serial 3.6 Gb/s unit and the 81250 ParBERT is a modular, parallel 2.6 Gb/s BERT. They can perform multiplexer and demultiplexer testing for telecommunications and system area network (SAN) ICs, multiple transmitter and receiver testing, forward error correction (FEC) device testing, and compliance testing of optical components. In conjunction with a golden device, users of the 81250 ParBERT can test 40-Gb devices back-to-back, in parallel. The unit provides up to 64 parallel stimulus and 64 error-detection channels at speeds up to 2.66 Gb/s. The 86130 BitAlyzer allows users to simulate and analyze error correction coding schemes, allowing for experimentation with different interleave depths. Both instruments are claimed to ease the measurement of impedance discontinuities and crosstalk, and both can check compliance with international standards using eye diagram masks. The 86130A BitAlyzer is priced starting at $110,000 and the 81250 ParBERT starts at $70,000.