Tektronix releases the DPO/DSA/MSO70000 Series of multipurpose oscilloscopes and analyzers

Digital oscilloscopes have quickly surpassed their analog counterparts for testing, debugging, development and verification. Tektronix recently announced their latest high performance series of digital and mixed signal oscilloscopes – the DPO/DSA/MSO70000 family.

Targeted for high speed / high data rate applications, the 7000 series can analyze signals up to 33 GHz and acquire samples at 100 GS/s.

Typical applications include:

• Design Verification including Signal Integrity, Jitter, and Timing Analysis
• Design Characterization for High-speed,
• Sophisticated Designs Certification Testing of Serial Data Streams for Industry Standards
• Memory Bus Analysis and Debug
• Prototype Turn-on and Power Supply Verification
• Research and Investigation of Transient Phenomena
• Production Testing of Complex Systems
• Spectral Analysis of Transient or Wide-bandwidth RF Signals

The DPO70000 has four channels for signal capture and analysis, with a maximum of 50 GS/s on each. Single show bandwith is 23 GHz on all channels simultaneously to eliminate undersampling when using multiple channels. Where jitter and internal noise are a concern, the DPO can be configured to 100 GS/s acquisition

Applications which require a greater number of signal interfaces can use the MSO variation which supports 16-channel digital acquisition and 4-channel analog input, for a maximum total of 20 channels simultaneously. Timing resolution is sub 80 pico-seconds, and channel to channel skew is minimized across all inputs.

Memory depth and event recording in also expandable to capture longer duration events such as power supply sequencing. Optional memory depths up to 125 MS (Option 10XL) on the 4, 6, and 8 GHz models and 250 MS (Option 20XL) on the 12.5 through 33 GHz models are available.

Another feature of the MSO series is Tektronix “iCapture” feature which enables a single connection for both digital and analog signal capture. Engaging the iCapture mode puts the MSO into a digital to analog multiplex input allowing verification of the analog characteristics of any of the 16 digital inputs channel, effectively transforming the MSO into a 20 channel analog sampling oscilloscope

Digital oscilloscopes are providing features which used to only be found in dedicate protocol analyzers. DPO/DSA/MSO70000 Series has a capture package for application specific standards. These allow for very fast set-up and monitoring to determine if the signals are compliant to the specification standards, and to quickly determine which signals are out of bounds.

Included in this are waveform masks and measurement limit testing for:

• SDLA – Serial Data Link Analysis (Option SLE and SLA) – Offers the capability to emulate the serial data channel, de-embed a fixture or other network, and add or remove equalization
• DDR Memory Bus Analysis (Option DDRA) – Automatically identify DDR1, LPDDR1, LPDDR2, DDR2, DDR3, and GDDR3 Reads and Writes and makes JEDEC conformance measurements
• USB 3.0 Transmitter Test Solution (Option USB3) – Perform verification, characterization, and debug of USB 3.0 devices
• PCI Express Analysis Test Solution (Option PCE3) – Analyze the performance of your PCI Express Rev 1.0, 2.0, or 3.0 design with comprehensive test support
• Ethernet Compliance Test Solution (Option ET3) – Receive full PHY layer support for Ethernet variants 10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, and 1000BASE-T with the comprehensive, integrated Tektronix Ethernet tool set MIPI® D-PHY
• Characterization and Analysis Solution (Option D-PHY) – Verify to the D-PHY specification MIPI® M-PHY Debug, Analysis, Characterization and Conformance
• Test Solution (Option M-PHY) – Verify to the M-PHY specification XGbT 10GBASE-T Automated Compliance Software – Quickly perform 10GBASE-T measurements per the IEEE 802.3an-2006 standard SFF-8431
• SFP+ Compliance and Debug Solution (Option SFP-TX) – A comprehensive automated and debug solution for SFF-8431 SFP+ PHY and SFP+ Direct Attach Cable Specifications “10GSFP+CU.”
• DVI Compliance Test Solution (Option DVI) – Obtain quick and dependable results with the DVI compliance test software HDMI Compliance Test Solution (Option HT3) – A fast, efficient solution for HDMI compliance measurement
• DisplayPort Compliance Test Solution (Option DP12) – Supports DisplayPort Compliance Test Standard (CTS) source test
• Power Measurement and Analysis Software (Option PWR) – Improve the efficiency of switching power supplies with increased power densities
• SignalVu® Vector Signal Analysis – Easily verify wide-bandwidth designs such as wideband radar, high data-rate satellite links, or frequency-hopping radios and characterize wideband spectral events Serial ATA, SAS modules are also available.

Another feature provided by Tektronix for efficient and consistent testing to protocols is symbolic set-up. Symbolic bus formats simplify identifying system states and setting up bus triggers.

Verifying system operation often requires the ability to see specific system states on a key bus such as the DDR SDRAM interface. The DPO/DSA/MSO70000 Series includes parallel and serial bus decoding. Using the bus triggering capability of the DPO/DSA/MSO70000 Series to isolate the exact state needed or find invalid bus sequences is as easy as defining the bus and choosing the bit pattern or symbolic word that describes the desired state.

Additionally, serial bus decoding for 8b / 10b encoded data, I2C, SPI, CAN, LIN, FlexRay, RS-232/422/485/UART, USB, and MIL-STD-1553B buses enable identification of where control and data packets begin and end as well as identify subpacket components such as address, data, CRC and other packet framing data. For higher bit rate standards like PCI Express, the 8b10b serial pattern trigger covers data rates up to 6.25 Gb/s.

To verify serial architectures, the serial pattern triggering for NRZ serial data streams with built-in clock recovery in the DPO/DSA/MSO70000 Series allows correlating events across physical and link layers. T he instruments can recover the clock signal, identify transitions, and allow you to set the desired encoded words for the serial pattern trigger to capture (standard on the DSA70000 Series and is available on the DPO70000 and MSO70000 Series as Option ST6G). For higher bit rate standards like PCI Express, the 8b10b serial pattern trigger covers data rates up to 6.25 Gb/s.

The embedded processor in the 70000 series allows for many different advanced waveform analysis parameters to be configured. It’s possible to implement a full analysis of the power, voltage, and temperature corners of your system. User-defined math expressions can be created with MathWorks® MATLAB® or Microsoft Visual Studio® and added to the scope’s math system.

Exporting results into a user friendly format is also easy. Data from the oscilloscope can be captured into Microsoft Excel using the unique Excel toolbar, and formatted into custom reports using the Word toolbar provided with the DPO/DSA/MSO70000 Series.

Of course, it’s also critical to match the test and measurement probe with the data you are looking to sample. Tektronix offers a wide range of probing solutions to cover all types of measurements from a 8 Gb/s serial data, fast digital logic, to switching currents in power supply design. Solutions include active single-ended, differential, logic, high voltage, current, optical, and a wide range of probe and oscilloscope accessories (for more information, please see related article, Choosing The Right Oscilloscope Probe).

The DPO/DSA/MSO70000 family is a feature rich suite of test equipment, and a single unit can now do the work of what used to take multiple testers, oscilloscopes, analyzers and waveform generators. Prices start at $57,000 and range as high as $295,000 depending on how the 7000 is configured.