Ins and outs of SS Link Training in USB3.0

As you may know, USB3.0 has a state machine called LTSSM (Link training and status state machine) which is responsible for

1. Initialization and link training
2. Power management transitions
3. Link error recovery and other connectivity issues.

Here’s where you can find more information on our Verification IP.

LTSSM has 12 high level states as shown below. In this blog, we will examine the states that are involved in link training, and see how link partners moves to state U0 where actual transfers begin.

Link training is the sequence of events which takes place during the initialization of link after power on reset or when warm reset is directed. This is basically to detect the link partner and train the link before starting to do any kind of transfers on the link. As shown in above diagram, the link training sequence starts at Rx.Detect  (the power ON state for  both an upstream port and a downstream port), and ends with exit to U0 which is the normal operation state where packets are transmitted and received. Before link training, both upstream and downstream ports will be in SS.Disabled state (the state where a port’s SuperSpeed connectivity is removed). In the Polling state, link training is enabled through the LFPS (Low Frequency Periodic Signal) handshake used to communicate information without SS signaling

The following figure shows the link training states along with their sub-states.

How do you configure your Verification IP for completing the SuperSpeed link training sequence in lock step with the DUT?  Synopsys’ USB 3.0 and 3.1 Verification IPs define several timers and parameters with the appropriate default values which makes it a simple task to achieve this. Some of these parameters map to the USB specification and a few are added to aid the verification of the operation of the DUT in both normal or error conditions. The default values ensure that you can enable the Link Training sequence without having to override any of the parameter values.

In some cases you may need to tweak the parameters to try out different corner cases or to further slow down the time taken for link training. Here, we will specifically look at the link training sequence (due to warm reset or power on reset) and will correlate the parameters in the VIP which affect this sequence.

All the names mentioned in italics are variables in svt_usb_configuration class in USB VIP, names/values in square brackets [] are USB specification names/values.  If the direction of port is not mentioned it is taken to be for both upstream (host) and downstream (device) port.

Rx.Detect.Reset

Entry to this state can happen because of a warm reset or a power on reset. Watch out for the parameters below as physical power goes to P2 state. Depending on the previous physical power state, the VIP uses one (or more) of the below timer value.

• p0_to_p2_transition_time
• p3_to_p2_transition_time
• p3_to_p0_transition_time
• allow_p2_p3_direct_transition

If the entry is not due to warm reset then it moves directly to Rx.Detect.Active. If the entry is due to Warm Reset then the transition depends upon the type of the port VIP is configured as.

• If the VIP is configured as a downstream port (host) then it transmits LFPS for t_reset_timeout [tReset] time. This is called as warm reset sequence. As soon as timer expires, the VIP stops sending LFPS and moves to Rx.Detect.Active.
• If the VIP is configured as an upstream port (device) then transition to Rx.Detect.Active happens after host (DUT connected to VIP) completes sending LFPS warm reset signaling.

Rx.Detect.Active

This state is used for detecting the link partner at the other end. In this state, the VIP performs ‘receiver termination’ detection (receiver_detect_time) and moves to Polling.LFPS, if ‘receiver termination’ is detected. If the receiver termination is not detected then it does the following.

• If VIP is a downstream port (host) then it moves to Rx.Detect.Quiet.
• If VIP is an upstream port (device) then it moves to Rx.Detect.Quiet for rx_detect_termination_detect_count [8] times. If low impedance termination is not detected even after this then moves to SS.Disabled.

NOTE: ‘Receiver termination’ is detected differently in serial vs PIPE3 interface.

Rx.Detect.Quiet

Wait here until rx_detect_quiet_timeout [12ms timer] expires and move back to Rx.Detect.Active.

Figure 1: LFPS signalling in Polling.LFPS

Polling.LFPS

Once the link partner is detected in Rx.Detect state, both (upstream and downstream) ports go into Polling for training the link. In this state, the VIP transmits LFPS until burst timer polling_lfps_burst_time) expires. It also counts the number of bursts received and checks if the exit criteria (check below for exit criteria) are met. If the exit criteria are not met, then the VIP would wait for the ‘repeat timer’ (polling_lfps_repeat_time) to expire and then start the above process (transmitting LFPS) again.

Exit Criteria for exiting to Polling.RxEq.

• polling_lfps_sent_count (no. of LFPS bursts sent) [16]
• polling_lfps_received_count (no. of LFPS received) [2]
• polling_lfps_sent_after_received_count (no. of LFPS bursts sent after receiving first LFPS from the link partner) [4]

It is important to meet the exit criteria before polling_lfps_timeout [360ms timer] expires. If timeout expires then VIP does one of the following depending on the direction of the port

• If downstream port (Host) then it moves to Rx.Detect
• If upstream port (Device) then it moves to SS.Disabled

Figure 2: TSEQ getting exchanged during Polling.RxEq

Polling.RxEq

This state is used to train equalization logic by exchanging TSEQ (Equalization Training Sequence) ordered sets. One can skip this state by enabling ltssm_skip_polling_rxeq. After transmitting polling_rxeq_tseq_count [65,536] number of TSEQ ordered sets VIP will move to Polling.Active.

Polling.Active

In this state, the VIP will keep on sending TS1’s until it receives polling_active_received_ts_count number of TS1/TS2 continuously. Every time a different sequence is received, the VIP will reset the counter. Thus, it makes sure either TS1 or TS2’s are received continuously for polling_active_received_ts_count [8] number of times.

It is important to meet the exit criteria before polling_active_timeout [12ms timer] expires. If this timeout expires, then the VIP does one of the following:

• If it’s a downstream port (Host),  it would  move to Rx.Detect
• If it’s an upstream port (Device), then it would move to SS.Disabled.

Figure 3: TS1 and TS2 getting exchanged in Polling.Active and Polling.Configuration

Polling.Configuration

In this state, the VIP will start sending TS2’s but will only start counting them after receiving the first TS2 from the link partner.

Exit Criteria: This state is exited once the following counts are met.

• polling_configuration_received_ts2_count [8] //No. of TS2 received
• polling_configuration_sent_ts2_count [16] //No. of TS2’s sent after receiving the first TS2 from the link partner

It is important to meet the exit criteria before polling_configuration_timeout [12ms timer] expires. If timeout expires then the VIP does one of the following

• If it is a downstream port (Host), it moves to Rx.Detect
• If it is a upstream port (Device, it moves to SS.Disabled.

Polling.Idle

First thing that the VIP does in this state is to check if the reset bit is set in the TS2’s received in Polling.Configuration and if the port direction is upstream (device). If it detects these two conditions, the VIP moves directly to Hot.Reset state of LTSSM.

If above condition is false then exit to U0 when below ‘counts’ are reached.

• polling_idle_received_idle_count [8] // No. of idle’s received
• polling_idle_sent_idle_count [16]      // No.  of idle’s sent after receiving the first idle from the link partner.

The important point here is to meet the exit criteria before polling_idle_timeout [2ms timer] expires. If timeout expires then the VIP does one of the following

• If downstream port (Host) then move to Rx.Detect
• If upstream port (Device) then move to SS.Disabled.

Figure 4: U0 state at the end of link training

Once Polling.Idle is done, link moves to U0 state where physical power changes to P0 and the actual transfers starts. Thru out this sequence at any given point of time, upstream port (device) moves to Rx.Detect on warm reset. Most VIP’s has an option to start in U0 state (usb_ss_initial_ltssm_state) so that users can skip entire initial link training and can start doing the transfers right from the start of simulation. Sometimes the DUT which is connected to VIP may not have such option to skip link training, in those cases we recommend to play with the configuration parameters mentioned in this blog to minimize the simulation time in link training.

We hope this blog post helps you to plan out your different link training sequences as per your needs.

Authored by Hari Balisetty, Broadcom

Here’s where you can find more information on our Verification IP