Protocol Speeds Mobile Device Debugging

For its 5 and 6 Series MSO mixed signal oscilloscopes, Tektronix introduces protocol decode, triggering and analysis support for the MIPI Alliance’s System Power Management Interface (SPMI). The software option takes advantage of the capabilities of these oscilloscopes including the productivity of touch-based setup on the MSO’s 15.6-in HD display for showing multiple buses and low-noise power rail voltages.

 

SPMI is used to connect processors in mobile devices to one or more power controllers and enables processors to dynamically increase or decrease power to specific subsystems for reduced power consumption. With Tektronix’ SPMI decode option, users can decode bus activity, saving time compared to attempting to decode bus activity manually. Bus sequences are displayed with clear color-coding indicating sequence starts, master IDs, commands, addresses, data, and acknowledgments.

 

The SPMI software option gives users the ability to trigger the scope on specific bus activity and search through acquisitions. Other features include the ability to check bus sequence timing and compare bus activity to embedded software with a time-stamped decode table and to correlate bus activity with precision voltage and current measurements on voltage regulator outputs.

 

The 5-SRPM and 6-SRPM options are available now and priced at $1,850 each. For more details, visit the SPMI decode page.