Oscilloscopes offer 62GHz bandwidth ‘without tricks’

"The 90000Q series represents another breakthrough for Agilent Infiniium oscilloscopes," claimed Jay Alexander, general manager of Agilent's oscilloscope products division. "In the last five years, we have introduced oscilloscopes with the deepest memory, the lowest noise floor and the highest bandwidth. The 90000Q series is the culmination of all these innovations and features all three industry-leading characteristics to help engineers design and validate devices that use emerging technologies." Key capabilities of the devices include: direct digitisation of M-band signals (60 to 100GHz); capture of the third harmonic on 28, 32 and 40Gbit/s digital signals; analysis of IEEE802.3ba 40/100/400Gbit Ethernet and Optical Internetworking Forum CEI 3.0 signals; measurement of up to four differential channels in a single acquisition; and direct measurement of voltage swings larger than 1V while taking high bandwidth and general purpose measurements. The full bandwidth is attained without interleaving, says the company, claiming it had been decided 'some time ago' that it was not the way to do it. Driving the device is a new Agilent development called Real Edge, said to be a combination of new architectures, next generation microcircuits and thin film components and advanced application of Agilent's proprietary indium phosphide semiconductor process. Ten models will be available: five twin channel devices with bandwidth ranging from 20GHz to 62.8GHz; and five four channels devices spanning 20GHz to 33GHz. All can sample at 80Gsample/s, with the exception of the 50GHz twin channel model, which samples at 160Gsample/s. Prices for the scopes range from £130,000 to £280,000.