RF & Microwave Designline Blog
Scope roundup
Janine Love
4/17/2012 7:37 AM EDT
There's been a lot of news and events surrounding oscilloscopes lately, so I thought I would do a round up for you.
On the top of my list is a webinar from Tektronix that takes a closer look at mixed domain oscilloscopes (MDO). (Incidentally, the Tektronix MDO4000 was honored with a Test & Measurement World best in test award in 2012). Here's what the webinar covers in case you want to check it out:
Last week, Agilent released a new scope that bears a closer look. Dan Strassberg did a comprehensive review of the new Infiniium 63-GHz scope and copared it to the LeCroy LabMaster 10 Zi family of scopes, released earlier this year. In addition, Tektronix released six new scopes in March. If you are interested in a lower cost scope, then you should kow that Rigol released the DS4000 series earlier this year as well.
As for technical articles, there is one that takes a look at oscilloscope memory, why it is is important, and what are the trade-offs of memory in different architectures: Oscilloscope memory depth: when bigger is not always better. We also have one on Measuring and understanding oscilloscope update rate. And, if you need to analyze hot-swap circuits, this article tells you how to use the scope's math channel to do just that.
If scopes are your thing, then you really should head on over to ScopeJunction, a relatively new site that caters to all things scope. I wrote a blog for the site on the brief history of scopes, which you might find entertaining.
If you've used any of these products, have a scope tip, or just want to vent or rapture about scopes, sound off below!
On the top of my list is a webinar from Tektronix that takes a closer look at mixed domain oscilloscopes (MDO). (Incidentally, the Tektronix MDO4000 was honored with a Test & Measurement World best in test award in 2012). Here's what the webinar covers in case you want to check it out:
Fundamentals of Mixed Domain Oscilloscopes
The Mixed Domain Oscilloscopes or MDO4000 from Tektronix represent a new paradigm in instrumentation. The MDO is designed specifically to make time correlated measurements between digital, analog, and RF signals simultaneously in both the time and frequency domain. For the first time, an engineer now has an integrated tool to analyze complex RF behavior that has been difficult to verify with separate instruments. This webinar is ideal for the embedded designer that is attempting to understand the RF signal integrity of their design and correlate time and frequency measurements.
In this webinar, you will learn
- Industry trends driving the need for measurement domain correlation
- An overview of the MDO capabilities and topology
- Learn about common behaviors of RF that make impact your design
- Several common use case examples:
- Debugging embedded wireless devices
- How to troubleshoot EMI in embedded designs
- How to correlate time and frequency domain behaviors of RF signals
Last week, Agilent released a new scope that bears a closer look. Dan Strassberg did a comprehensive review of the new Infiniium 63-GHz scope and copared it to the LeCroy LabMaster 10 Zi family of scopes, released earlier this year. In addition, Tektronix released six new scopes in March. If you are interested in a lower cost scope, then you should kow that Rigol released the DS4000 series earlier this year as well.
As for technical articles, there is one that takes a look at oscilloscope memory, why it is is important, and what are the trade-offs of memory in different architectures: Oscilloscope memory depth: when bigger is not always better. We also have one on Measuring and understanding oscilloscope update rate. And, if you need to analyze hot-swap circuits, this article tells you how to use the scope's math channel to do just that.
If scopes are your thing, then you really should head on over to ScopeJunction, a relatively new site that caters to all things scope. I wrote a blog for the site on the brief history of scopes, which you might find entertaining.
If you've used any of these products, have a scope tip, or just want to vent or rapture about scopes, sound off below!
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http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/poconoarmchairreview
4/20/2012 2:07 AM EDT
They did a nice PCB introduction on ScopeJunction.com. Wow, I remember when I used to play with a scope to see how it worked for fun.
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steve.freestone
4/20/2012 8:09 PM EDT
That beast we call the oscilloscope has come a long way over the years. The first one I ever used was a huge Tektronix behemoth that had vacuum tubes and rolled around on a "ScopeMobile". The bandwidth was barely above audio and it only had 2 channels. Now I use a handheld digitizing scope with 4 channels, 200 MHz bandwidth, and all sorts of bells and whistles.
Watching the evolution of test equipment is one of the best things about being a technician.
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janine.love
4/24/2012 10:52 AM EDT
I agree with you Steve. We are lucky to do what we do.
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Patk0317
4/21/2012 12:37 PM EDT
There are indeed all kds of scopes these days. I have some low performance ( butmgoodmenu for audio) scopes that are extremely low cost. Evan one from Oscium that uses the iPad as the CRT!
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