Tektronix has announced a breakthrough series of mid-range oscilloscopes that set a new price for performance benchmark in the industry, including a GHz machine for under £12,500
Mainstream products are quick to leverage the speed and functionality found in the latest innovations, and the measurement tools used for design and manufacturing must keep pace with these advancements.
The new TDS5000 family of digital phosphor oscilloscopes (DPO) consists of three instruments that offer high-performance features at an unprecedented price to satisfy the needs of engineers designing electronic products. "With today's mainstream computer, telecom, industrial and consumer products approaching the performance of the previous generations, developers are facing measurement challenges previously tackled at the 'cutting edge'.
These engineers expect Tektronix to deliver ever-increasing measurement performance to support their work on the fast, complex products at a price they can afford", said Craig Overhage, vice president, Instruments Business Unit, Tektronix: "Offering a 1GHz oscilloscope at less than £12,500, the TDS5000 Series DPOs are the first instruments to put exceptional measurement features within the reach of this more cost-conscious customer." The new TDS5000 Series DPO consists of three models.
The 1GHz, 4-channel TDS5104 leads the family and is a valuable asset for accurate viewing of fast clock signals and pulse edges.
The 500MHz, 2-channel TDS5052 and the 500MHz, 4-channel TDS5054 round out the series.
Available record lengths for the TDS5000 Series extend to 8 Megabytes as an option.
Each model has a maximum real-time sample rate of 5 gigasamples per second (GS/s) and a waveform capture rate up to 100,000 waveforms per second (wfms/s).
All three TDS5000 models inherit from the TDS7000 Series DPOs patented DPXa acquisition technology that updates the waveform thousands of times faster than conventional digitising oscilloscopes.
Deadline-pressured designers can capture irregularities more reliably and thereby trace problems more quickly.
Digital phosphor oscilloscopes provide unmatched insight into signal behaviour by displaying, storing and analysing complex signals in real-time using three dimensions of signal information: amplitude, time and distribution of amplitude over time.
The TDS5000 Series oscilloscopes incorporate an industry-leading suite of eleven advanced triggers, including a highly flexible window trigger for digital designers and analogue high-definition TV, Secam, NTSC and PAL triggers for video designers, being introduced with these products.
Each trigger provides several qualifications and settings that result in the availability of numerous variations.
These triggers are essential to meet the engineer's need to set acquisition conditions and capture specific events of interest.
By triggering on a suspect event, a designer can quickly detect the source of the problem or the underlying circumstances that caused it.
The TDS5000 Series user interface, a high-performance feature migrated from the award-winning TDS7000 Series DPOs, lets engineers choose from various types of controls: analogue-style knobs, pull-down menus, optional touch-screen control keyboard and mouse.
Additionally, voice commands are made possible by VocalLink voice control software, a recommended accessory.
These compact benchtop instruments save valuable space on the engineer's crowded test bench, without compromising the vivid and bright, 10.4-inch liquid crystal display (LCD). Options, such as a built-in printer to simplify documentation of results, or a CD-RW drive for storage, complete the offering. Based on an integrated, open Windows platform, the TDS5000 Series provides industry-leading connectivity with computer networks and peripherals, providing access to standard analysis and documentation tools, Web browsers and email.
In addition, the new TDS5000 models are fully interoperable with Tektronix TLA Series logic analysers.
Via the optional Integrated View (iView) package, a Tektronix oscilloscope, such as a model from the TDS5000 Series, is coupled with a TLA Series logic analyser.
This solution shows time-correlated views of both digital and analogue waveforms on the logic analyser display for the fast detection of analogue problems behind digital faults.
