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Tektronix Expands DPO7000SX Series of Oscilloscopes to Include 13GHz and 16GHz Options

July 03, 2019 by Gary Elinoff

Tektronix just added two new models—a 13 GHz and a 16 GHz—to their DPO70000SX series of oscilloscopes.

Tektronix just added two new models—a 13 GHz and a 16 GHz—to their DPO70000SX series of oscilloscopes.

Yesterday, Tektronix announced two new additions to their DPO70000SX series of oscilloscopes. Let's take a quick look at the series as a whole and these two newcomers.

The DPO70000SX Series

Tektronix claims that their DPO70000SX series of oscilloscopes are the "world's first 70GHz ATI performance scope(s)". Here, "ATI" is a patented Tektronix term that stands for "asynchronous time interleaving"—a technique that uses two symmetrical ADCs to concurrently sample the spectrum, allowing an average to be attained that is more accurate than the reading of a single ADC.

 

The eye patterns produced via the two techniques for interleaving. Image from Tektronix

 

The new 13 GHz and 16 GHz models will feature the same high sample rate and low noise floor of this extent series.

 

Two versions of the DPO70000SX (left) scaled together in a stack for parallel processing. 

The DPO7000SX series was and still is aimed at engineers charged with testing the highest performance, highest speed serial and optical interface standards. Members of the family operate at bandwidth of up to 70 GHz. The new 13 GHz DPO71304SX and the 16 GHz DPO71604SX make the same best in class features available to engineers working with lower speed interfaces such as:

  • USB
  • Display Port
  • HDMI
  • LPDDR
  • MIPI
  • C-PHY
  • D-PHY

The new units are also appropriate for work with still widely used legacy applications such as PCI Express Gen 3 and SATA.

Members of the DPO70000SX series are supported by an extensive range of compliance applications packages that offer fast throughput for these standards and for other evolving standards.

 

Series member DPO7002SX is a 200 gigasamples per second oscilloscope operating at 70 GHz. Image from Tektronix
 

 

New 13GHz and 16GHz Scopes

Both of the two new models both offer four 50 GS/s (gigasamples per second) sample rate input channels. Record length is 1G points.

UltraSynch architecture provides precise data synchronization and convenient operation across multi-unit systems to support applications that require more than four channels. As such, the performance of up to four scopes for a total of 16 input channels can be synchronized.

So why these two new models?

 “We are expanding the DPO70000SX family in response to changing market and customer needs,” said the general manager of Tektronix's Wideband Solutions Business Unit, Jon Baldwin. “With this introduction, the hardware performance and software analysis tools that were developed for the most challenging high-speed applications are now available at more bandwidth levels to address a wider array of interface technologies and customer use cases.”

Tools Aiding Analysis

DPOJET is an analysis solution toolkit that aids in the characterization of the bit error ratios (BER) of devices. This task requires a breakdown of the impact of both jitter and noise, which DPOJET achieves by providing both jitter and noise analysis displayed using BER contours.

The toolkit offers analysis of jitter and eye-diagram. This allows engineers to quickly analyze their communication system designs.

The Serial Data Link Analyzer (SDLA) Platform facilitates the analysis of system behavior at multiple test points simultaneously and enables optimization of CTLE/DFE settings to accomplish receiver equalization.

Signal Sources

All members of the DPO7000SX series pair with existing Tektronix signal sources:

Oscilloscopes Around the Industry

It should be pointed out that 70 GHz oscilloscopes are not new developments, and devices operating at 13 or 16 GHz are even less so. There are many other factors to be considered when contemplating such a purchase.

Indeed, it is evident from this report that an organization looking for a device of this nature has to meticulously study the entire platform that is being considered, not just the oscilloscope alone.

  • The UXR0704A Infiniium UXR-Series from Keysight Technologies are 70 GHz, 4 channel oscilloscopes. They can take 256 GS/s on all channels, and have up to 2G points of memory.
  • The R&S RTO2000 oscilloscope from Rhode & Schwartz sports a bandwidth ranging from 600 MHz to 6 GHz. Maximum sample rate is 20 GS/s, and memory depth is two 2G.

 


 

Have you worked with the DPO70000SX series? Have you been in a situation where you needed a 13GHz or 16GHz oscilloscope specifically? Share your thoughts in the comments below.