Semiconductor test equipment supplier Advantest Corporation has announced that its MPT3000 solid state drive (SSD) test systems are the industry’s first with the ability to test PCI Express fifth-generation (PCIe Gen 5) devices, including those utilizing the new Compute Express Link (CXL) interconnect standard. To help drive product introduction, qualification and volume production demands associated with PCIe Gen 5 NVMe & CXL devices, several leading memory device makers have purchased multiple MPT3000 products, including engineering systems, high-volume manufacturing testers, and device interface boards.
PCIe Gen 5 enables high-speed data transmission, with transfer speeds as high as 32 GT/s and up to 128GB/s bandwidth – essential for data centers as well as artificial intelligence (AI) and 5G applications. CXL is an open industry standard memory interconnect that builds on the physical and electrical interfaces of PCI Gen 5 to provide high-performance connections across memory types. By eliminating proprietary memory interconnects, CXL allows different processors to share memory pools, optimizing speed, latency and shared resource coherency and enabling creation of new storage architectures that will benefit servers, AI neural networks, and deep/machine learning.
Added test flexibility supporting new product development increases SSD manufacturers’ gross margins, while earlier product introduction helps grow market share. Advantest designed its flexible MPT3000 systems to meet testing needs for both enterprise and client SSDs, helping shorten customers’ time-to-market. In addition to CXL test, key MPT3000 capabilities include testing up to 32 Gbps, increased sideband and high-speed support, and improved temperature management for high-wattage drives.
“We are committed to driving memory and storage test innovation by developing the first systems and boards that will enable testing for both PCIe Gen 5 CXL and NVMe SSDs,” said Indira Joshi, vice president, SSD Test Division, Advantest America. “By expanding our proven MPT3000 system’s capabilities to address PCIe Gen 5 CXL, we are well positioned also to expand our relationships with important customers in the memory market.”
