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Tektronix Raises The Bar With First Real-Time Oscilloscope For 4.25 Gb/s Serial Data Analysis, Compliance Measurements 7-GHz Digital Phosphor Oscilloscope Is One Of Two New Models With Pacesetting Acquisition, Analysis, Usability Features Beaverton, Oregon---Tektronix, Inc., the world's leading manufacturer of oscilloscopes, takes its award-winning Digital Phosphor Oscilloscopes (DPOs) to a new performance level, solving the most demanding high-speed measurement problems in communications, computing, and other advanced electronic applications. Steadily advancing data speeds and new serial architectures are a hallmark of today's emerging computing and communications technologies. Designers, running compliance tests on fast digital protocols, are challenged with the complexities of these new architectures and adherence to a hierarchy of standards that ensure interoperability between devices. The new Tektronix TDS7704B 7-GHz DPO and the CSA7404B communications signal analyzer raise performance levels with superior measurement fidelity, unrivaled analysis, and uncompromised usability to speed the validation, debug, characterization and test of complex, high-speed designs. "High-speed environments such as Fibre Channel, XAUI, Infiniband and PCIExpress present engineers with significant analysis and interoperability challenges. Our customers are looking for test equipment that can handle the raw performance of the latest buses and, equally important, make complex, time-consuming testing fast and simple," said Colin Shepard, Vice President, Oscilloscope Products, Tektronix, Inc. "The new TDS7704B is today's ultimate serial data design tool, providing not only the banner specifications and signal fidelity to address high-speed data rates but also the solution set engineers need to be more efficient and confident throughout the design and test cycle." Superior Measurement Fidelity For Unparalleled Acquisition At High Speeds With its 7-GHz bandwidth (true analog bandwidth rather than bandwidth extended by digital post-processing techniques which may have signal fidelity consequences unknown to the user) the TDS7704B acquires signals with unsurpassed fidelity. The oscilloscope's input risetime is an industry-leading 43 ps, and delta-time measurement accuracy at 1.5 ps RMS. The DPO's waveform capture rate (more than 400,000 waveforms per second) powered by exclusive DPX acquisition technology, is orders of magnitude better than existing digital storage oscilloscopes (DSOs) in delivering faster accumulation of signal data for both critical insight into signal behavior and in-depth analysis. The new DPOs offer the industry's most advanced triggering and clock recovery features. Sequential triggers help designers hone in quickly on problems due to errors that are considered faults only when they occur after certain other events have occurred. Other triggers include a broad selection of edge, timing, setup/hold, fault, and event triggers. Thanks to a new SiGe-based trigger system implementation, trigger jitter is as low as 1.0 ps RMS and the circuit can detect glitches as low as 110 ps. The new DPOs uniquely address both hardware and software clock recovery by a new, continuously variable (1 Mb/s to 3.125 Gb/s) built-in hardware clock recovery circuit or by integrated software clock recovery tools, embracing the widest range of serial standards. Unrivaled Analysis For Ultra-Reliable Compliance Results All of the new DPO models include a robust Waveform Database (WfmDB) acquisition mode which dramatically reduces the time it takes to accrue the millions of cycles' worth of samples required by most compliance tests. The new DPOs can be optioned with the industry's broadest range of automated software applications to speed pass/fail testing to industry standards such as XAUI, PCI Express, Infiniband, and FibreChannel. Other available applications simplify jitter analysis, power measurements, and more. In addition, the instruments' OpenChoice architecture makes it possible to integrate the widest selection of third-party analysis applications or custom software solutions into the oscilloscope environment. Uncompromised Usability Aids Comprehension And control To speed analysis of the voluminous acquisition records that result from serial bus and disk drive measurements, the new DPOs include a MultiViewZoom feature that makes it easy to expand localized waveform segments while maintaining an overall view of the larger record. Users can automatically scroll through the data and focus on up to four segments, comparing them for similarities or discrepancies. Assisting the user's viewing and comprehension is a new a full-color 1024 x 768 pixel, 10.4" (26.4 cm) XGA display, the industry's largest display and only XGA. Lastly, the adaptable user interface allows users to control the instrument by using a touch-screen, traditional analog-style knobs, mouse and keyboard or a PC-style graphical user interface---whichever is most comfortable and efficient for the individual. Tektronix Inc. Web address: http://www.tektronix.com

Economic market pressure is turning up the heat in the oscilloscope business, and in response Tektronix is repositioning its entire oscilloscope portfolio, re-pricing its scope products. At the high end you'll find Tek's high-speed serial data compliance testing scopes such as the new TDS7704B Digital Phosphor Oscilloscopes (DPOs) and CSA7404B communications signal analyzers. Moving down the food chain, there are less powerful and lower-bandwidth instruments used for general troubleshooting and educational purpose. All are now favorably priced---many more so than previously. Migrating Patterns One reason is that a migration pattern has emerged. According to Tektronix marketing manager Chris Martinez, devices that once were considered leading edge are migrating into mainstream applications. "That's forcing design engineers to move up the test instrumentation performance curve," he says. Ultra-high-performance scopes that once tested these leading-edge designs are also moving into mainstream performance applications. At the same time, designers working on mainstream applications are facing budget constraints. In many cases, these constraints limit the purchase of instruments with the performance they need. "As I talk to test-and-measurement manufacturers, their customers are challenged by their instrumentation budgets," confirms Galen Wampler, an industry analyst at market research firm Prime Data. "Escalating signal speeds and accelerating time-to-market pressures challenge engineers to do more in less time. "Designers are looking to test makers to provide everything," concludes Wampler, "including hardware, software, and accessories. The goal is to create an affordable range of approaches to address a variety of applications." It's for these reasons that Tektronix has re-positioned its product line-up. Tek's latest DPOs are the tip of the iceberg in the company's strategic mix of repositioned wares. The two new models in the press release discussing the TDS7000B Series include the ultra-high performance TDS7704B and CSA7404B. A notch below that is Tek's TDS/CSA7000 Series DPOs (B and non B models). These are for applications from 1-GHz to 4-GHz, and are now re-priced at points starting at $19,900. Tek's TDS5000 Series are also part of the new mix. In these scopes, the firm's PowerUser package (Option TSY) includes longer memory, advanced analysis capabilities, additional RAM, a CW-RW drive, a printer and a touchscreen interface---all for less than $1500. Tek emphasizes that that's about an $8,400 value if purchased separately. In addition, probes are now standard for the TDS5104 model. More Bundling Moving down the line you'll find Tek's DS3000B Series, where options and accessories are now bundled (Option BND) for less than $500. Tektronix says these wares would set you back $1990 if purchased separately. DS3000B products include lithium-ion batteries, soft carrying cases, communications modules, Tek's windows-based OpenChoice software, and analysis and limit-testing modules. Similarly, Tektronix's TDS1000/2000/3000B Series, dubbed OpenChoice Solutions by the company, now have features and options previously only available on the company's highest performance scopes. For example, these scopes seamlessly mate with PCs. TDS1000 and TDS2000 scopes also use CompactFlash cards for mass storage and data transfer. The Highest Performance Boxes Let's focus on the TDS7704B DPO and the CSA7404B communications signal analyzer announcements. Although lower-end TDS7104 and TDS7054 family members run 850-MHz embedded Intel Celeron processors, the TDS7154B, TDS7254B, TDS7404B, and TDS7704Bs run Pentium 4 processors clocking at 2 GHz. With their Windows OpenChoice architectures and appealing high-res (1024 x 768-pixel) touchscreens, a top-end TDS7000B Series scope exhibits a 20-Gsample/s realtime sample rate (albeit for one channel; this rate is halved for two channels, and halved again for three or four channel operation). The table summarizes sample rates and record lengths for various TDS7000B family members. Click for table display Note that these features are combined with very high delta-time accuracy and powerful triggering attributes. The top-end scopes offer a timebase range that goes down to 50-ps/division (and as slow as ten seconds/division), with a timebase delay time range down to 5-ns. Channel-to-channel de-skew is within ±75-ns. Trigger jitter is typically only 1.2-ps RMS. Long term sample rate and delay time accuracy is just 2.5-ppm over any 100-ms (or greater) interval. With specs like these it's easy to see why these instruments can mask test at up to 4.25 Gbit/s rates. Tek's press statement also mentions the DPX acquisition architecture that lets you do waveform capture at rates up to 400,000 waveforms/s. Unlike instruments that can take hours (or even days) to process signal streams, that kind of speed can help you zero in on things like glitches---in minutes or even seconds. Then OpenChoice lets you write custom programs or pull in other Windows-based software packages for even more analysis. Comms-Oriented Boxes For its part, Tek's 4-GHz Model CSA7404B joins the lower bandwidth (1.5-GHz) Model CSA7154. These scopes, billed as communications signal analyzers, feature built-in compliance mask features that support both electrical and optical serial data streams. For the latter, these instruments accept 62.5-µm core multi-mode fibers. When doing fiber optics analysis, built-in optical-to-electrical (O/E) converters and integrated optical reference receivers ease the task. Like the TDS7000 Series scopes, these analyzers are also Windows 2000-based OpenChoice systems. Offering single-connection convenience, they permit capture of long communications streams, with Tek's MultiView Zoom feature easing the navigation of long records. The scopes also have a 64-bit serial trigger that can let you isolate pattern-dependent effects. The embedded software lets you measure an eye pattern's extinction ratio, Q-factor, eye height and width, as well as all important jitter and noise. The system's waveform database also lets you make accurate parametric measurements on eye patterns. If you're designing or compliance testing optical and electrical signal systems, these scopes will ease physical layer (PHY) characterization for signals on backplanes and midplanes, as well as in embedded designs. In fact, you can use them anywhere serial signal integrity, margin verification, and jitter and timing analysis are paramount. Being realtime digital scopes, they can easily support analysis of signals at speeds to 2.5 Gbits/s, such as those found in leading-edge OC-48/STM-16 and Fibre Channel FC2125 technologies. Both models also a probe calibration and deskew fixture, an O/E electrical output to Ch. 1 input adapter, a fiber cleaning kit, a GPIB programmer's reference, an Oscilloscope Analysis and Connectivity Made Easy kit, a performance verification procedure .PDF file, and NIST, MIL-STD-45662A, and ISO9000 Calibration Certificates. For much more information---and to locate a Tektronix office near you---click here to go directly to Tek's Web site. Or, contact the company at Tektronix, Inc., 14200 SW Karl Braun Dr., PO Box 500, Beaverton, Oregon 97077. Phone: (800) 835-9433.