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Product category: Stand-Alone Instruments
News Release from: Tektronix | Subject: TDS7704B 7GHz DPO and CSA7404B
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial Team on 9 October 2003

Real-time scope takes
on 4.25Gbit/s serial data

The new TDS7704B 7GHz DPO and the CSA7404B communications signal analyser raise performance levels with superior measurement fidelity, unrivalled analysis and uncompromised usability

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 7GHz DPO and the CSA7404B communications signal analyser raise performance levels with superior measurement fidelity, unrivalled analysis, and uncompromised usability to speed the validation, debug, characterisation and test of complex, high-speed designs.

"High-speed environments such as Fibre Channel, XAUI, Infiniband and PCI Express 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: "The new TDS7704B is today's ultimate serial data design tool, providing not only the banner specifications and signal fidelity to address high-speed datarates but also the solution set that engineers need to be more efficient and confident throughout the design and test cycle".

With its 7GHz bandwidth (true analogue 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 rise time is an industry-leading 43ps, and delta-time measurement accuracy is 1.5ps 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 behaviour and in-depth analysis.

The new DPOs offer the industry's most advanced triggering and clock recovery features.

Sequential triggers help designers focus 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 1.0ps RMS and the circuit can detect glitches as low as 110ps.

The new DPOs uniquely address both hardware and software clock recovery by a new, continuously variable (1Mbit/s to 3.125Gbit/s) built-in hardware clock recovery circuit or by integrated software clock recovery tools, embracing the widest range of serial standards.

All of the new DPO models include a robust waveform database acquisition mode which dramatically reduces the time it takes to accrue the millions of cycles' worth of samples required by most compliance tests.

Options available for the new DPOs include 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.

To speed analysis of the voluminous acquisition records that result from serial bus and disk drive measurements, the new DPOs include a MultiView Zoom feature that makes it easy to expand localised 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-colour 1024 x 768 pixel, 10.4in XGA display - the industry's largest display and the only XGA display available.

Lastly, the adaptable user interface allows users to control the instrument by using a touch-screen, traditional analogue-style knobs, mouse and keyboard or a PC-style graphical user interface-whichever is most comfortable and efficient for the individual.

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