Overview
Specifications & Details
Datasheets & Downloads
Videos

Most of us know Z400 as the Nordic god of thunder and lightning. But in the world of Ethernet testing world, Thor plays a starring role in Xena’s Ethernet Traffic Generation solutions.

Thor boasts some truly heroic features – like being able to test both NRZ and PAM4 speeds. For NRZ based Ethernet at data rates of 10G / 25G / 40G / 50G and 100G. And for PAM4 based Ethernet at data rates of 50G / 100G / 200G / 400G. It can also test Auto-Negotiation and Link Training (AN/LT).

In the Xena line we also have Z10 Odin (NRZ testing 10Mbps to 10G), Z100 Loki (NRZ testing 10G to 100G), and Z800 Freya (10G PAM4 to 800G PAM4) and in the future also 1.6 Terabits.

Manufactured By: Teledyne LeCroy Xena

Speeds and technology

In addition to NRZ technology, Z400 Thor also uses PAM4 technology. Pulse Amplitude Modulation (PAM) increases the number of bits in serial data transmissions by using several pulse amplitude levels. Unlike the NRZ modulation technique, which uses two voltage levels to represent logic 0 and logic 1, PAM4 uses four voltage levels to represent four combinations of two bits logic – 11, 10, 01, and 00. With this a SerDes speed of 56Gbps can be achieved, keeping the Baud rate (symbol rate) at 28GBaud.

Because PAM4 allows more data to be transmitted faster, it was chosen as the underlying technology for enabling 400 Gigabit Ethernet traffic.

Thor supports Ethernet testing of NRZ data rates of 10G / 25G / 40G / 50G / 100G, as well as PAM4 56Gbps SerDes data rates of 50G / 100G / 200G / 400G.

Hardware

Z400 Thor is available in the Xena’s fixed 1U chassis, called the XenaCompact. Or as a separate test module for Xena’s modular 4U XenaBay (B2400) chassis.

	Z400q Thor
Interfaces	1 QSFP-DD/QSFP56/QSFP28/QSFP+
Ports x Speeds	1 x 400GBASE-DR4/LR4/FR4. (PAM4) or 1 x 400GBASE-SR8/FR8/LR8/CR8, (PAM4) or 2 x 200GBASE-CWDM4 (dual CS connector), (PAM4) or 1 x 200GBASE-DR4/SR4/FR4/LR4/CR4, (PAM4) or 4 x 100GBASE-CR2, or 4 x 100GBASE-DR, (PAM4) or 2 x 100GBASE-SR2/CR2, 2 x 100GBASE-DR (dual CS connector) (PAM4) or 1 x 100GBASE-SR4/LR4/CR4/CWDM4, (NRZ) or 8 x 50GBASE-SR/CR, (PAM4) or 4 x 50GBASE-SR/CR, (PAM4) or 2 x 50GBASE-SR2/LR2/CR2, (NRZ) or 1 x 40GBASE-SR4/LR4/CR4, (NRZ) or 4 x 25GBASE-SR/LR/CR, (NRZ) or 4 x 10GBASE-SR/LR/CR(NRZ)
XenaCompact	✓
XenaBay	✓ Can only be installed in the B2400 chassis where it requires 3 slots (2 for Thor plus 1 for mandatory airflow guide).

Software

All Xena solutions include user-friendly software to make it quick and easy to perform a multitude of relevant performance, QA, compliancy and functional testing: XenaManager, applications for automated RFC 2544, Y.1564, RFC 2889 and RFC 3918 testing, Xena OpenAutomation and Xena TimeSynch.

Add Impairment Emulation with E100 Chimera

Many factors can impede data traffic as it crosses different networks. Network emulators are a cost-effective tool for helping verify if equipment can handle real-world conditions. That’s why the Xena Ethernet Test Platform also includes the E100 Chimera, a network emulation test module that makes it easy to emulate multiple forms of latency, jitter and other forms of impairment to Ethernet traffic.

E100 Chimera supports full wire-speed impairment at five speeds up to 100Gbps and works seamlessly with Xena traffic generators, allowing you to both generate and impair traffic via the same XenaManager GUI – a feature unique to the Xena platform.

Types of Impairment

Latency/Jitter	Packet Impairments	Flexible Distributions
Constant delay	Drip	Manual
Accumulate and burst	Mis-ordering	Gaussian, Gamma, Poisson
Step delay	Duplication	Burst drop (random / fixed)
Gaussian / Gamma / Poisson Jitter	Corruption (ETH, IP, UDP, TCP)	Gilbert-Elliot
Custom Jitter		Bit Error Rate Custom Distributions

BW Shaping

Port Impairments

Misc. Features

Input policing

Optical link flap

syncE (Tx follow recovered clk)

Output shaping

Logical link flap

PMA error pulse injection

Learn more about E100 Chimera Network Emulator

Xena Networks - Z400 Thor for testing 10G to 100G NRZ & 50G to 400G PAM4 Ethernet traffic