Written by : Oren Frenkel Intel Confidential ® C CD SDS

® Intel Confidential Topics Background – Intel – DSPC, Cellular Testing, ICAT Application. What are External Devices. An overview of The XDEV module. Demonstration.

® C CD SDS Intel Confidential Background – Intel DSPC Intel acquired DSPC (Digital Signal Processor Communications) in 1999 for 1.6 billion dollars, within their efforts to lead the cellular market. Today, Intel DSPC is one of the leading companies in software and hardware development for the cellular market. Intel’s products combines Digital Signal Processors (DSP), micro controllers, Flash and analog devices on the same chip, supporting the TDMA, CDMA, and GSM standards.

® C CD SDS Intel Confidential Background – SDS and ICAT The SDS (Software Development Solutions) team is in charge of the development of a generic software application tool, called ICAT. The ICAT (Intel Cellular Analysis Tool ) software application is used for the development, validation and testing of the mobile cellular user equipment. My Project is the designing and development of the XDEV (External Devices) module, in the ICAT application.

® C CD SDS Intel Confidential What is XDEV ? XDEV Stands for External Devices It is a part of the ICAT application. XDEV ’ s main purpose is to manage and control the connection to all the external devices.

® C CD SDS Intel Confidential Which external devices does XDEV handle? External devices are instruments used for advance stage cellular and signal testing. For instance: Base Station Simulator, Signal Generator, Signal Analyzer, etc. XDEV does not handle the connection to the mobile.

® C CD SDS Intel Confidential The Role of External Devices In Cellular Testing Each mobile, before being allowed into the market, has to go through an enormous amount of tests,In order to pass the standard. These tests include : functionality under extreme conditions of temperature and noise, level of radiation, power efficiency, sound quality, functionality in urban areas, open areas and more. Only a small part of these tests are field tests. The majority of these tests are done through external devices, especially designed for cellular testing.

® C CD SDS Intel Confidential How are these external devices activated ? External Devices can be activated in 2 ways : –Manually through the device ’ s panel. –Through scripts written in C, C++ or Visual Basic. These scripts run on a regular PC, and can communicate with up to 30 external devices through the GPIB interface. The scripts are in charge of running all the testing scenarios needed for cellular testing.

® C CD SDS Intel Confidential A Simple Testing Configuration

® C CD SDS Intel Confidential External Devices Communication Layers (SW) The next layer is the specific Device Drivers – C and h files written by the manufacturer, containing global functions to activate the device. Next come the scripts, that run testing scenarios using several devices. The next layer is VISA, that is in charge of opening and managing sessions (like sockets) to the devices. Finally comes the ICAT Test Engine, that is in charge of running the scripts in a specific order. The lowest communication layer to external devices is the GPIB protocol.

® C CD SDS Intel Confidential (Cont.)

® C CD SDS Intel Confidential How did things use to work?

® C CD SDS Intel Confidential How things used to work? (2) The Test Engine runs the scripts as DLLs. The scripts were responsible for creating the connections to the devices.

® C CD SDS Intel Confidential So –Who Needs XDEV ? One module that will initialize and terminate them once - instead of every script is in charge of Initializing and terminating the connections every iteration saving time and resources. Separating the device configuration settings and drivers from the scripts (modularity). Allowing multithreaded script running. Manual Command Sending to the devices through GUI. Automatic Driver Registration.

® C CD SDS Intel Confidential ICAT Application.exe Test Engine Module Script 1.dll Base_Station_Driver.dll Script 2.dll Power_Supply_Driver.dll VISA.dll GPIB.dll The drivers are linked to the VISA dll (meaning that they are dependant on VISA). 4) The scripts are linked to the drivers DLL, which has already been initialized by XDEV. 3 ) The Test Engine dynamically loads the script dlls, and runs them on a separate thread. XDEV.dll 1) The Test Engine dynamically loads the XDEV dll. 2) The XDEV dll dynamically loads the driver’s dll’s, and initializes the devices through their interface. The New SW Architecture :

® C CD SDS Intel Confidential XDEV’s Main Modules

® C CD SDS Intel Confidential XDEV’s Main Modules (cont.) The Device Manager - in charge of the registration of devices into XDEV, and managing their properties in a database. The Connection Manager – in charge of initialization, termination and maintenance of the connections to the devices, providing services to different modules simultaneously, and avoiding collisions. The Configuration Manager – Through this module the user will be in charge of graphically defining the configuration between the devices. The XDEV Send Command – will enable the user to send commands to the devices manually, through a graphical user interface.

® C CD SDS Intel Confidential XDEV’s Main Modules (cont.) The Driver Wizard will be an add-in for the visual studio environment. It will assist the programmer with creating a new driver, or converting an existing driver into a format compatible to XDEV. The Driver Wizard will plant the XDEV Prepass as a custom build step. The XDEV Prepass will be an independent executable, that will be in charge of converting the driver into a format suitable for XDEV, and entering its function ’ s prototypes into the database for the use of the Send Command Module. These modules will be thoroughly described through the XDEV Demonstration.