Ellisys Ships First SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Protocol Analyzers

• Author: USBWorld
• Filed under: USB News
• Date: Nov 30,2008

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Ellisys, a leading supplier of protocol test and analysis solutions for the Universal Serial Bus (USB), Wireless USB, the WiMedia UWB platform, and Bluetooth®, has delivered Explorer 280 (EX280) SuperSpeed USB protocol analyzers/generators to its early adopter customers in the U.S and Japan, believed to be the world’s first such production shipments of this type of protocol test tool.  Ellisys demonstrated the EX280 system at the SuperSpeed USB Developers Conference held in San Jose CA, November 17-18, 2008, where it will participated as a Gold sponsor of the event.

“Ellisys designed the EX280 system from the ground up, avoiding the pitfalls of using a patchwork of older analyzers or technologies, using new, custom-designed hardware and firmware specifically built to handle the engineering challenges presented by SuperSpeed USB architecture,” states Laurent Guinnard, Ellisys co-founder and president for technology.  “We are pleased to be able to deliver real, working SuperSpeed USB protocol analysis products to an early market, and to enable those early adopters eager to validate their designs.”

Dual-Use System Provides Unsurpassed Configuration Flexibility
The EX280 hardware can be configured on-the-fly as a logically passive analyzer, monitoring and characterizing SuperSpeed USB or legacy USB traffic between two system components, such as a host and device.  It also has a dual role in that it can perform as an active generator, emulating a system component in order to actively characterize and test another system component.  Additionally, the EX280 can be configured to accommodate standard connectors built to the USB 3.0 specification, or alternative front-end interconnections, such as SMA.  A dual capture modality provides users a choice to employ a stream-to-disk feature, or a traditional circular buffer approach, using very large hardware memory resources.

“Our development approach is comprehensive, and includes involving our customers as an important voice in the design effort, establishing an active technical support and feedback network, working closely with complementary and proven solution providers, and implementing an ongoing feature development effort,” states Mario Pasquali, Ellisys co-founder and president for products.  “We look forward to enabling the rapidly growing ecosystem of SuperSpeed USB developers.”

Company’s History with USB and Commitment to SuperSpeed USB
Ellisys has been providing USB test and analysis tools for eight years, and has introduced many industry firsts as well as unique and innovative approaches to USB analysis and validation, including an automated compliance test suite (Device Examiner™), inline error injection, stream-to-disk functionality, probing methods for embedded USB applications, and graphical timing analysis (InstantTiming™).  Ellisys has also been a key contributor to the growth and development of Wireless USB, with the 2005 introduction of the industry-leading WEX300 WiMedia Explorer analyzer/generator system.  To support early adopters of SuperSpeed USB, Ellisys has implemented a partner program, intended to provide participating leading-edge developers with EX280 application software tools, Beta products, and engineering collaborations.  Early SuperSpeed USB adopters may request membership to this program at www.ellisys.com/technology/early_adopters/usb30.php.

Availability and Configurations
The Explorer 280 system is in stock and now shipping.  The hardware may be purchased as analyzer-only, generator-only, analyzer/generator, or in a Duo configuration of two units configured as analyzer and generator.  For more information, please contact sales@ellisys.com.

About SuperSpeed USB
The USB 3.0 Promoter Group was formed to create SuperSpeed USB a personal interconnect that can delivers over 10 times the speed of today’s connection.  The technology will target fast sync-and-go transfer applications in the PC, consumer and mobile segments that are necessary as digital media become ubiquitous and file sizes increase.  The USB (Universal Serial Bus) 3.0 specification will create a backward-compatible standard with the same ease-of-use and plug and play capabilities of previous USB technologies.  Targeting over 10x performance increase, the technology will draw from the same architecture of wired USB. In addition, the USB 3.0 specification will be optimized for low power and improved protocol efficiency.