Tektronix announced the launch of mixed domain oscilloscope (MDO) that delivers the functionality of an oscilloscope and a spectrum analyzer in a single instrument.
The new MDO4000 Mixed Domain Oscilloscope Series gives engineers the unique ability to capture time-correlated analog, digital and RF signals for a complete system view, helping them to rapidly solve complicated design issues.
More than 60 percent of oscilloscope users also use a spectrum analyzer to troubleshoot embedded system designs with integrated wireless functionality, requiring them to work in both the time and frequency domain.
“The complexity of debugging issues in modern wireless systems, combined with the lack of equipment designed for the task has forced us to spend many hours focusing on the test setup rather than the design issue itself,” said Ward Ramsdell, Electrical Engineer and Owner of
Prototype Engineering.
With wireless becoming more commonplace, design engineers must often work in both domains. The MDO4000 Mixed Domain Oscilloscope Series is the first oscilloscope ever to integrate the functionality of a spectrum analyzer to provide a unique toolset which will save days or even weeks of debug time.
“We believe that the MDO4000 Series is the most revolutionary product to hit the oscilloscope market in the last 20 years, for the first time breaking down the barrier between time and frequency
domains,” said Roy Siegel, general manager, Oscilloscopes at Tektronix.
“It fundamentally changes what’s involved in debugging designs with RF where there is a need to correlate events in the frequency domain with the time domain phenomena that caused them. Just as the mixed signal oscilloscope (MSO) is the standard for embedded design test, we expect the MDO will become the new standard for “designs that increasingly include RF capabilities,” Siegel added.
With the MDO4000, engineers can replace both a scope and spectrum analyzer with a single instrument. This enables them to continue using their tool of choice, the oscilloscope, to look at the frequency domain rather than having to find and relearn a spectrum analyzer.
And the MDO4000 goes well beyond typical spectrum analyzer functionality by allowing users to capture time-correlated analog, digital and RF signals across 4 analog, 16 digital and 1 RF channel. The RF input frequency range extends up to 6 GHz and provides a capture bandwidth of ≥
1 GHz at all center frequencies, 100 times wider than typical spectrum analyzers.
Users can even see up to 4 decoded serial and/or parallel buses at one time on the same display. Due to this time correlation between domains, engineers can now make accurate timing measurements to understand delays and latencies between command / control events in their design and changes in the RF spectrum.
For example, viewing the spectrum as a VCO/PLL turns on, or measuring the transition characteristics of a frequency hopping RF signal are now simple tasks. And finding the source of intermittent, device-state dependant EMI noise has never been easier thanks to the MDO4000s ability to provide a complete time correlated system view across both domains, something
that is simply not possible with today’s test equipment.
In another industry first, the MDO4000 allows designers to see the RF spectrum of a signal at any point in time within a long acquisition to see how the spectrum changes over time or with device state.
By simply moving the unique and patent pending Spectrum Time throughout the time domain acquisition, designers can see the RF spectrum for any point in their acquisition while simultaneously seeing their analog, digital and/or decoded buses at the same point in time.
Similarly, RF time domain traces are used to show how the amplitude, frequency or phase of the RF input signal changes relative to time. This makes it easy to characterize frequency hop transitions, settling times, and RF event timing relative to other system components and activities.
The RF time domain traces are shown in the same window as the analog, digital and serial/parallel bus decoded waveforms, providing instant insight into device operation.
In addition to the standard RF power level trigger, an optional module (MDO4TRIG) allows additional trigger types to use the RF power level as a source, enabling customers to further isolate an RF event of interest. Users can trigger on a specific pulse width, or look for a timeout event or runt, or even include the RF input in a logic pattern defined along with the analog and digital channels.
This ability to trigger on whatever the user is interested in regardless of whether it’s analog, digital, RF or some combination thereof represents another industry first for the MDO4000 Series.
In addition to its industry-first mixed-domain capabilities, the MDO4000 offers all the feature-rich tools of Tektronix MSO4000B Mixed Signal Oscilloscope Series combined with the features of a mainstream spectrum analyzer.
The MSO4000B Series offers a robust set of features to speed every stage of debugging designs — from quickly discovering an anomaly and capturing it, to searching waveform records for the event and analyzing its characteristics and the device’s behavior.
Tektronix recently announced four new DPO/DSA70000D Series oscilloscope models with real time sampling rates up to 100 GS/s on two channels and 33 GHz analog bandwidth on four channels.
These new products include models for 25 and 33 GHz bandwidths that provide the highest level of measurement accuracy for today’s fastest electrical signals across multiple channels.
By Telecomlead.com Team
editor@telecomlead.com
