Product category: Test Accessories
News Release from: Tektronix | Subject: P7350
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 29 May 2003

Probe helps test
high-speed serial buses

A new 5GHz differential oscilloscope probe aims to help engineers working with fast serial bus technologies such as PCI-Express, RapidIO, Serial ATA and SPI/SFI5

Tektronix has developed a new 5GHz differential oscilloscope probe. Until now, engineers working with fast serial bus technologies such as PCI-Express, RapidIO, Serial ATA and SPI/SFI5 have been hampered by the lack of a differential probe with adequate bandwidth to test signals up to 2.5Gbit/s.

The new Tektronix' P7350 5GHz differential probe, available for order today, has bandwidth and rise time verifiable by industry-accepted methodologies.

Incorporating nine patents with three additional patents pending, the P7350 differential probe meets the needs of designers who must acquire differential signals (as found in a RapidIO bus architecture, for example) at datarates of up to 2.5Gbit/s.

Designed for use with Tektronix oscilloscopes in the TDS6000, TDS7000, and CSA7000 Series, it eclipses the previously industry-leading bandwidth of Tektronix' P7330 3.5GHz differential probe.

Finally, the P7350 is a companion to the world's fastest single-ended active probe, Tektronix' 6GHz P7260.

Both types of probes are commonly used in the design and troubleshooting of high-speed digital systems.

"We have dozens of customers who are extremely excited to receive this probe, but their ability to order it today and receive it immediately is only part of the story.

They also realise that it is critical for probe performance claims to be supported by accepted industry practices", said Colin Shepard, Vice President and General Manager, Oscilloscope Products, Tektronix: "While others have claimed comparable probe performance, Tektronix' customers can have the same confidence in the performance of this probe that they have had in our products for over 55 years".

The definition of probe bandwidth and the means by which it is determined have become the subject of some controversy recently.

For customers performing digital measurements, however, the importance of a probe's bandwidth specification is often eclipsed by a more critical need for its specified rise time.

Tektronix has long demonstrated its probing leadership by meeting this critical customer need.

As an established practice, the company not only specifies typical probe bandwidth using a conservative and industry accepted methodology, but guarantees rise time for its active probes and specifies common-mode rejection ratio (CMRR) for its differential probes.

Customers using the new P7350 probe are guaranteed a 10-90% rise time of less than 100ps and performance that correlates closely with real-world measurement needs and results.

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