Tektronix raises bar for oscilloscope sampling rates, signal integrity

BANGALORE, INDIA: Tektronix Inc., the world's leading manufacturer of oscilloscopes, announced the DPO/DSA/MSO70000C series of digital and mixed signal oscilloscopes that now deliver 100 GS/s sampling rate performance; enabling lower noise along with increased data points on 5x oversampled 20 GHz acquisitions.

This world’s best over-sampling performance in a high bandwidth oscilloscope delivers significant real-world benefits including more accurate signal integrity measurements for such high-speed serial standards as PCI Express Gen 3. Other enhancements include a new, faster compute platform and a more stable timebase, ideal for radar applications.

High-performance oscilloscopes with bandwidth of greater than 4 GHz are used in a variety of high-speed serial, wideband radar, fast optical communications systems, high-end embedded systems, and high-energy physics applications.

As designs move to faster and faster data rates, the margin provided by the measurement system becomes a critical factor. The DPO/DSA/MSO70000C Series, with its unprecedented 5x oversampling, delivers the performance and signal fidelity designers need to ensure that their latest cutting edge components and systems meet design specifications.

“With few exceptions, the most important requirement for a high-performance oscilloscope is that it have a high sample rate that in turn leads to a lower noise floor and less jitter, thus providing a better performing instrument for signal integrity measurements,” said Brian Reich, general manager, Performance Oscilloscopes, Tektronix. “The DPO/DSA/MSO70000C Series, with its 100 GS/s acquisition performance, gives our customers even more measurement margins that they can put to use today to increase their designs’ performance levels and lower manufacturing costs.”

Along with a two-fold increase in sampling rate compared to the “B” Series it replaces, the DPO/DSA/MSO70000C Series features a faster compute platform. This new platform offers faster processing for longer data records such as jitter, noise, BER (bit error rate) measurements and statistics. Boot and application start up times are also significantly quicker.

“With the DPO/DSA/MSO70000C Series Tektronix delivers performance in all the right places where it will help us characterize designs with more speed and precision,” said Mark Marlett, principal engineer at Xilinx. “With adequate oversampling, we get more data points in our measurement results to accurately understand rise time performance on fast signals. With the 70000 Series, we gain confidence using real data versus having to guess with lesser sampling rates.”

In any digital oscilloscope, there is a strong correlation between sampling rate and internal noise -- a high sampling rate results in less noise which in turn leads to more margin for the user. As shown by extensive comparison testing, the DPO/DSA/MSO70000C Series with 100 GS/s operation delivers up to 20 percent reduction in noise compared to the 50 GS/s setting on the same instrument.