MARKHAM, October 26, 2021 – Amfeltec Corporation announced today the new addition to its Test Backplane product line: the PCI Express Gen 3 Test Backplane for PCI Express boards testing is in full production.
A common problem of today’s Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) board testing lies in the variety of the modern PCI Express board types. Various boards support different PCI Express speeds (Gen 1, Gen 2 or Gen 3) and can have different upstream PCI Express connection lengths (one, four, eight or sixteen lanes). There is even a type of PCI Express board that uses the motherboard’s PCI Express switch in order to perform bifurcation (to split the upstream interface to multiple x4 or x8 interfaces).
“Apart from this variety problem, we also regularly see OEM & other customers whose production testing process consumes a significant amount of time,” says Michael Feldman, President and CTO at Amfeltec Corp. “Both problems can be avoided with our new Test Backplane. It not only cuts down production testing time by implementing hot-swap functionality, but also supports testing of all the new types of PCIe boards: Gen 1 to Gen 3; upstream interface from x1 to x16; and bifurcation-based boards.”
The Test Backplane is powered by a standard ATX power supply and connects with the host computer via a standard 10 ft CAT7 cable via a PCI Express, MiniPCI Express or ExpressCard® host board.
Test Backplane Features:
- Four x16 PCI Express connectors (lanes per connector: four/sixteen/sixteen/four). – PCI Express Gen 1, 2, 3 support (2.5 Gbit/sec, 5 Gbit/sec and 8 Gbit/sec). – Real-time operation monitoring.
- UUT (Unit-Under-Test) current measuring on 3.3V and 12V during testing. – Hot-swap replacement UUT (PCIe add-in board) without powering down host computer to reduce testing cycle time.
- Individual (per slot) overcurrent and overvoltage protection to eliminate the risk of damage to the UUT, Test Backplane or host computer (during production testing, UUT on-board component programming or UUT debugging).
- Individual JTAG connectors per PCIe slot for supporting JTAG emulators; or for supporting Amfeltec’s EasyLoader™ (which significantly speeds up UUT board’s components programming during production testing).
- Mechanical stabilization (US Pat. 7,255,570) for add-in PCI Express boards to facilitate bracket-less mount (when using backplane without a chassis).
“Our new Test Backplane comes from years of engineering and system development experience,” adds Michael Feldman. “We use it in our production facility ourselves, for testing all of Amfeltec’s PCI Express products”.
The Test Backplane is available in three versions:
- SKU-015-01-PCIe (with x1 PCIe host board).
- SKU-015-01-MiniPCIe (with MiniPCIe host board).
- SKU-015-01-ECard (with ExpressCard® host board).
For additional information please visit the product line page:
https://www.amfeltec.com/pciexpress-gen-3-test-backplane
About Amfeltec Corporation:
Amfeltec is a Canadian electronics engineering company, incorporated since 2005. All Amfeltec products are designed and manufactured in Canada, and most are covered by one or more United States patents. Notable Amfeltec product families include Squid Carrier Board(TM), Piranha USB telecom Adapter(TM), Arowana PCIe SSD Board(TM), and AngelShark Carrier Board(TM).
Contact Information
Peter Suslik
T: 1.905.604.6438 x112
F: 1.905.604.6439
p.suslik@amfeltec.com
www.amfeltec.com