US Patent 7165196 Method for testing serializers/de-serializers

A test system and method for testing a serializer/de-serializer system. The system includes a pair of serializer/de-serializers each having a serial data receive port and a serial data transmit port. The serializer/de-serializers are adapted to be placed in a loop-back mode in response to a loop-back signal to pass data fed to the serial data receive port to the serial data transmit port. A backplane connects the serial data transmit port of one serializer/de-serializer to the serial data receive port of a second one of the serializer/de-serializers. A tester passes data to the first serial data receive port and receives data from the data transmit port of the second one of the serializer/de-serializers with both serializer/de-serializes placed in the loop-back mode.