“Modern designs increasingly involve multiple domains – analogue, digital and RF,” said Mike Flaherty, Tektronix’ general manager, bench instruments. “Tektronix is already meeting this need with mixed domain oscilloscopes. With the AWG4000 Series, we are bringing the same level of innovation and versatility to signal generation, making it easier for designers to get the answers they need in less time and with increased precision.”
While engineers mostly need to generate frequently used waveforms with little to no set up, they may also need to generate more complex waveforms. For example, says the company, the signal could be a clock with constant frequency in an embedded design or a mix of modulated waveforms in parallel with digital patterns in radar and communications designs. The AWG4000 series, it claims, is the first waveform generator with the flexibility to meet such a broad set of requirements.
Featuring a 10.1in touchscreen, the device offers such features as two analogue channels, a sample rate of up to 2.5Gsample/s, a 750MHz bandwidth, 14bit vertical resolution and an arbitrary memory of up to 64Mpt/channel. The device can also be upgraded in the field.
For simple tasks, the AWG4000 offers a basic arbitrary/function generation user interface for generating function and arbitrary waveforms with a minimum number of button clicks and a shallow menu hierarchy. For more complicated tasks, an advanced user interface based on Windows can be used to generate complex sequences and modulated signals in parallel with digital outputs. Signal generation tools, such as RFXpress or Matlab, can also be installed locally.
