Keysight and VSI Partner to Develop ASA Motion Link Test Methodology

Keysight Technologies and South Korean automotive chipset maker VSI have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to bring the industry’s vision of standardized automotive SerDes to market with unified testing requirements and methods. The partnership will focus on developing physical medium attachment (PMA) test methods and capabilities for the ASA Motion Link standard, enabling chipset vendors and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to bring automotive SerDes devices to market quickly.

As the number of cameras and displays used in automobiles grows, so does the demand for automotive SerDes communication. However, current solutions are often propriety and lack necessary security protocols and interoperability. The Automotive SerDes Alliance (ASA) recently developed and released the ASA Motion Link standard in response to these issues.

Self driving electronic computer cars on road. Source: Getty Images

“Automotive SerDes standards are important to our strategy, and we are pleased to work with Keysight to validate our design against the emerging ASA Motion Link specifications.” Steve Kang, CEO of VSI. “Early access to Keysight’s ASA compliance test solution will allow us to deliver new capabilities to our customers confidently.”

The ASA allows multiple companies to collaborate on defining and implementing test requirements. Through this collaboration, Keysight and VSI will validate emerging test methods to verify signal quality and predict how chipsets will function with other devices inside the vehicle’s network. In addition, both parties will work together to advance the adoption of ASA Motion Link to provide testing, validation, and certification of chipsets.

“Automotive SerDes is an important part of our in-vehicle networking portfolio, and we want to offer the best compliance application to assist our customers as they compete in this emerging ecosystem,” said Thomas Goetzl, vice president and general manager for Keysight’s Automotive & Energy Solutions business unit. “With this early work, we can validate those test methodologies, analyze quality, and give feedback about device support for interoperability and compliance success to accelerate the maturity cycle of the entire test ecosystem.”

Keysight and VSI are members of ASA, which includes OEMs, suppliers, and test vendors, working together and contributing to the test method definition, validating against real devices, and then iterating that process for the entire ecosystem. Keysight brings its core competency of high-performance instrumentation and automated software conformance and compliance tools to the ASA ecosystem.