BA-1600 - 1.6T Bit Analyzer

The BA-1600 is a world-class series of 1.6T electrical BER testers, with 4- and 8- channel PAM4 coding options for ultimate flexibility

Spec sheet

Key features

Full lifecycle validation for 1.6T, 800G and 400G across lab, fab and live environments

Superior hardware design: native electrical interface, excellent signal quality, clean eye diagram and low error floor

High-performance signal integrity and BER testing for validating compliance and performance in next-gen 1.6T designs

Flexible, cost-effective: choose 8 channel unit for transceiver testing, or 4-channel unit for high-speed component testing

User-friendly GUI streamlines workflows, and reduces learning curves

PAM4 support for validating high-speed signaling performance

FEC generation and analysis testing to ensure data integrity over ultra-fast connections

Real-time FEC analysis: testing of pre/post FEC BER, symbol error distribution and FEC margin

BLER: block error ratio statistics and an efficient FLRestimation mechanism, addressing the time constraints of ultra-low BERmeasurements

Powerful equalizer and channel simulator: powerful equalizer includes CTLE

I²C register read/write access enables the direct control and monitoring of device parameters for fast, low-level diagnostics and efficient debugging

‘Save-and-load’ functionality for all applicable parameters reduces valuable time and ensures test consistency

Automation simplifies complex test configurations and speedsup validation using a complete API suite

Applications

Test and validation of 1.6T transceivers

Testing high throughput in manufacturing

800G/1.6T interconnect testing

Hyperscalers and AI data centers

Win the race to 1.6T 

with test solutions that go from lab to fab today.

The BA-1600 1.6T Bit Analyzer series delivers full lifecycle validation for 1.6T, 800G and 400G testing across lab, fab and live environments. Supporting 4- channel and 8-channel PAM4 coding at 106.25, 53.125 and 26.5625 GBd per lane, it’s purpose-built as an electrical BERT for validating 1.6T Ethernet in R&D, production and test labs.

Designed for speed and simplicity, the BA-1600 series features a user-friendly GUI, powerful automation and ‘save-and-load’ functionality to streamline workflows and reduce setup time. Engineers can run high-performance signal integrity and BER testing, generate and analyze FEC, monitor block error ratio (BLER), and access I²C registers for fast, low-level diagnostics and debugging. API-controlled and ready to test 1.6T now, the BA-1600 series ensures efficient and consistent validation of next-gen designs.

Transceiver designers, hyperscalers and AI data centers

Transceiver designers choose the BA-1600 series test solution for complete lab-to-live testing of their 1.6T transceiver technology. This encompasses the development of transceivers in a lab environment, to the fabrication process of the device, through to ensuring those devices work as expected out in live environments. Hyperscalers use the BA-1600 series to perform pre-evaluation testing of transceivers prior to mass deployment of equipment across their AI data centers, ensuring the latest transceiver technology is working as per specification and is interoperable.

FEC is built in—so testing needs to go deeper

In next-gen optical transceivers, FEC encoding and decoding has moved from the host to inside the transceiver itself—making FEC testing essential for supported models. These transceivers now do more than convert electrical to optical signals; they actively manage error correction.

In 200G-per-lane transceivers using concatenated FEC, as defined by IEEE 802.3dj, it’s critical to test resilience to error bursts.

EXFO’s BA-1600 includes a powerful hardware FEC generation and analysis capability, enabling validation under real-world conditions, including error bursts. 