Product category:
Telecomms/network testing equipment, software and displays
News Release from: Tektronix | Subject: BPA100 Protocol Analyser
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 17 January 2001
State of the art Bluetooth Protocol
Analyser
Tektronix has announced the introduction of a protocol analyser for Bluetooth wireless technology development applications which can both join or monitor a piconet
Tektronix, an industry leader in test and measurement instrumentation and an Associate member of the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), has announced the introduction of a protocol analyser for Bluetooth wireless technology development applications The Tektronix BPA100 Bluetooth Protocol Analyser combines the protocol analyser recently acquired from Digianswer with enhanced features for hardware and software integration and design
For engineers integrating Bluetooth wireless technology into their products, Tektronix now offers the most comprehensive suite of design test solutions.
"Bluetooth wireless technology has tremendous momentum but one of the factors that has hampered its deployment is the lack of qualified test solutions," said Craig Overhage, vice president, Digital Systems Business Unit, Tektronix.
"The BPA100 enables customers to design and build next-generation Bluetooth products by providing a proven solution for device turn-on, stress testing and interoperability testing, all of which are key to the rapid development of Bluetooth products." The Tektronix BPA100 Protocol Analyser incorporates Bluetooth SIG qualified radio, baseband and host stack technology developed and marketed by Digianswer.
This new instrument adds significant new capabilities for hardware/software integration and design debug, including packet data error generation, data decryption, real time protocol decoding and display, and sophisticated triggering.
The Tektronix BPA100 Protocol Analyser is the only dual mode test instrument on the market that can both join or monitor a piconet.
A piconet is a group of devices synchronized together in a common communication pattern.
Participating in the piconet offers design engineers a significant advantage: In the "piconet mode" the BPA100 protocol analyser can generate traffic or inject intentional errors into the piconet to test other connected devices' ability to stay reliably connected under difficult or stressed conditions.
In the "independent mode," the BPA100 captures and analyses data transfers non-intrusively.
The instrument has many of the capabilities that design teams expect: It captures all baseband packets transmitted within a piconet and displays packet payload, status information such as access errors, estimated clock and hop frequency.
In addition, the data can be displayed at higher protocol levels such as LMP, L2CAP, RFCOMM, and SDP.
With selective filtering and advanced triggering, only data of interest may be logged, simplifying the identification of errors.
In free run display mode, the instrument display updates continuously as new packets are received, allowing the user to observe changes and track messaging in higher protocols.
Connection between the protocol Analyser hardware and the monitoring software on the host computer is via USB and data storage is only limited by the size of the user's disk drive.
Bluetooth technology is an evolving short-range wireless standard for connecting different kinds of enabled devices in ad-hoc networks; for example, connecting a mobile phone with a desktop or laptop computer, or synchronising a PDA and laptop without a cable interconnect.
Bluetooth devices can communicate by wireless signals within a 10-meter range, and do not need a line-of-sight connection.
Companies anticipating strong demand for Bluetooth products are seeking solutions for development and troubleshooting challenges that include hardware/software integration, interoperability testing, and pre-compliance testing.
Digianswer will continue to take orders and ship its Bluetooth Protocol Analyser v1.1 until January 29, 2001.
The Tektronix BPA100 Protocol Analyser is U.S.
priced at $24,950 and available to order beginning January 29, 2001 with delivery six weeks upon receipt of order.
In addition, Tektronix will upgrade all Digianswer Bluetooth Protocol Analyser v.1.0 and v.1.1 customers to the BPA100 (including new hardware and software) at no cost after March 1. Request a free brochure from Tektronix ...
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