Protocol analyzer captures traffic between wireless USB MAC and PHY layers
By Dan Strassberg -- EDN, September 8, 2005
The UWB (ultrawideband) Tracer MPI system helps design engineers solve problems with MAC/PHY (media-access-control/physical)-layer integration and interoperability in WUSB (wireless USB) systems based on the USB-IF’s (USB Implementers’ Forum’s) Certified Wireless USB 1.0 standard. The forum based the standard on the WiMedia Alliance’s MB-OFDM (multiband orthogonal-frequency-division multiplexing) UWB shared-bandwidth, short-range wireless-communication proposal. The USB-IF expects Certified WUSB to ultimately deliver data rates of approximately 1 Gbps at distances as great as 20m.
LeCroy Corp’s Protocol Solutions Group designed the analyzer. LeCroy formed the group when the company acquired CATC (Computer Access Technology Corp) in the fall of 2004. According to James Wright, director of marketing for the Group, CATC provided the first protocol analyzers for both USB and Bluetooth. “This new instrument captures and decodes at both the WiMedia and the WUSB levels,” he says. By acquiring the traffic between the MAC and PHY layers, it can display protocol traffic from systems during the design phase.
The $55,000 system uses the same Tracer-software structure that Wright says has become the industry’s de facto standard for USB-protocol analysis. “By using the CATC Trace display,” he says, “engineers can organize and display the protocol hierarchically at the WiMedia and WUSB levels. The software also includes pop-up tool tips, which provide information about the specifications, including packet structure and field usage.” The instrument also displays real-time statistics, which provide information on the performance and operation of the unit under test, including the signal strength and number of frame occurrences.
LeCroy Corp, www.lecroy.com.
