User guide

• Clock Out

• Aux Data Out

• Trigger/Ref Clock Out

Termination of output ports improves the test performance.

Important Information Regarding Security

The Serial BERT is a PC-based instrument with a standard Windows operating

system. As such, it is subject to the same security protection measures as any

other PC.

See the Microsoft web site for more information regarding data security:

http://www.microsoft.com/security/default.mspx

Every user must have administrator privileges to run the Serial BERT firmware.

Otherwise the firmware does not have access to the instrument's hardware.

In case of any serious malfunction in the operating system, the Agilent Recovery

System can be used to repair the system. See “Agilent Recovery System -

Procedures” on page 525.

Understanding BER

Bit error ratio (BER) is the most fundamental measure of system performance. It

is the ratio of the number of errored bits to the total number of bits received.

For example, 1 error in 1000 bits corresponds to a BER of 1/1000 or 1x10

-3

. This

would be displayed on the instrument as 1E-3. Refer to the following table to

familiarize yourself with how BERs are displayed. Notice that smaller exponents

correspond to higher BERs, and larger exponents correspond to lower BERs.

Table 1

Fraction Exponent Instrument Display

1/1

1 x 10

1E+0

1/10

1 x 10

-1

1E-1

1/100

1 x 10

-2

1E-2

1/1000

1 x 10

-3

1E-3

1 Planning the Test

12 Agilent J-BERT N4903B High-Performance Serial BERT