PULSE AMPLITUDE MODULATION (PAM) BIT ERROR TEST AND MEASUREMENT

摘要

A method and apparatus are provided to detect a threshold-error of a multi-level signal-under-test. In one aspect of the disclosure, a digital test sequence may be used to produce the signal-under-test. In one aspect, the digital test sequence may be mapped to M binary reference sequences, wherein M is greater than one. In one aspect, each of the M binary reference sequences may be associated with a voltage threshold and a received signal may be bit-compared with each threshold. In one aspect, a threshold-error may be counted when a bit of a binary reference sequence does not match the corresponding bit-compare result. In one aspect, an instrument is provided that compares a received amplitude to a plurality of thresholds at one sample time.