Abstract: Hardware assisted high speed serial (HSS) transceiver testing including receiving, by a link layer hardware state machine on a HSS transmitting device, an instruction to generate a test pattern, wherein the test pattern comprises a sequence of data units; loading, by the link layer hardware state machine, each unique data unit into embedded random access memory (RAM); generating, by the link layer hardware state machine, the test pattern comprising the sequence of data units using the unique data units stored in the embedded RAM, wherein at least one of the unique data units is repeated in the sequence of data units of the test pattern; and sending, by the link layer hardware state machine, the generated test pattern to an input of a HSS transceiver.

Abstract: Hardware error detection on a high-speed serial (HSS) connection including tracking, by a hardware state machine on a HSS receiver, errors in a data stream, wherein tracking, by the hardware state machine, the errors in the data stream comprises, for each sample of incoming data: inspecting, by the hardware state machine, a detected error indicator in a test control register to determine whether an error has been detected in the sample; incrementing, by the hardware state machine, an error count in a hardware error counter if the test control register indicates an error has been detected in the sample; clearing, by the hardware state machine, the detected error indicator if the test control register indicates an error has been detected in the sample; and incrementing, by the hardware state machine, a sample count in a sample count register.