Author Topic: Overview of the Tektronix MSO58 8-Channel 6.25GS/s 2GHz Mixed-Signal Scope  (Read 32334 times)

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Offline BrianH_Tektronix

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First to have a 20Ghz scope

What model? I'm only aware of the DPO70000 and this wasn't the first 20+GHz real-time scope (LeCroy and later Agilent were there before), although Tek was stuck with that design for a long time (and still offers it) while the competition marched on to 73Ghz, and only came out with a 70Ghz scope (DPO70000SX) after the competition launched 100GHz.

There's also the CSA8000 sampling scope but again it wasn't any faster than the competition (Agilent DCA, LeCroy WaveExpert).

Just to clarify, Tek had the first real-time oscilloscope up to 20GHz (DPO72004) which came out in Feb 2007. At the time LeCroy had 11GHz and Agilent had 13GHz. Today Keysight offers a 63GHz real-time oscilloscope, Tektronix offers a 70GHz and LeCroy offers a 100GHz. 
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Offline technogeeky

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You can argue positives and negatives about both, I'm sure. But I don't think anybody else has these kind of switchable front-ends.

Unlike most innovations in this segment, I don't think this is one that other manufacturers will want to copy.
You certainly wouldn't want to do it on a 4CH scope for example, you'd get killed in the market by all the other 4+16 channel scopes.

I read your assessment and I pretty much agree. Nevertheless, to my uninformed eyes (in the sense that I don't know every frontend of every oscilloscope) -- this seems like it's the introduction of something new.

Also, am I correct in thinking it's a small mistake to only think of the probe offerings of today? First of all, it's possible that the digital probes are extremely cheap to produce. IFF so, they can lower the price on those 8ch probe packs dramatically. Even if this doesn't happen, couldn't it be possible to interleave the digital and analog signals in a single probe in a useful way?

Even if you don't think they won't ever be cheap; or, you think they won't be useful in a new way... you still can't argue that this is just Tek re-badging something that other scopes are doing. This is a new thing.
 

Offline grouchobyte

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Dear Tektronix

The writing is on the wall. You guys are writing your own obituary and don't even realize it

Back when I worked at 'Tek, my business cards actually said ENABLING INNOVATION down at the bottom under my name and title, like a tag line. In fact that is what you guys did. But over the years that has evolved into something far removed from what we call it today

 Innovating is a little different in this day and age. You have some serious competition in this space and its not just good enough to do a me-too refresh in order to get market share. In the early days at Tek when Jack Murdock and Howard Volum walked the halls, Tek was truly in the innovation business. They made everything from CRTs to knobs, transistors and transformers, etc. This was not done because Tek wanted to make components, it was done in order to make the best instruments on the planet. In otherwords, Tek innovated to survive. And they did it like no other company could.

These days Tek seems to be motivated and inspired by smart phones and tablets are are pretending to innovate by following others, not by leading. Sure, you made a nicer mousetrap with the MSO but it is not earth shaking or game-changing ( gosh, I hate that term)

Please don't misunderstand me. I like what you have done with this new series 5 box, but you need to stop hyping it like its never been done before. The wanky videos you produce of the tek team expressing their passion for the team and the heart felt sentiments about this product is sickeningly sweet and reminds me of Jony Ive and his incesteous relationship with Apple.

We engineers use these things everyday and know full well what you have done. There is simply no need to defend, oversell  or spoon-fed us on your wonderful engineering feats and/or defend or justify your marketing decisions. We get it.

Remember the VCR? When Sony first introduced their 'game-changing' betamax VCR it was truly innovative and cost $2000. Then VHS was introduced by others but still over $1500. They all claimed that the pricing was justified because of the cost of development. That's cost led pricing. The sales were slow.....until Magnavox and their market-led pricing models (w/ some other Japanese mfgs) introduced the $299 VCR. Now the sales skyrocketed and the VHS VCR became ubiquious before moving into obsolescence like most consumer tech stuff. Sure they lost money in the beginning but they dominated for years and wiped the competition away.

Hint: If you want sales from this new MSO beast (and I mean that in an complimentary way) stop hyping it like Apple does with their products and market it with purpose. Like slash the price, throw in all the options and then wait for the phone to ring off the hook and the riots to begin.

Now that's welcome innovation that is consistent with Tek's early legacy.: Enabling Innovation.
(Today its more like Tektronix: Enabling Innovation by disabling it until you pay for it)

@grouchobyte
« Last Edit: June 22, 2017, 05:15:03 am by grouchobyte »
 
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Offline EEVblog

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Hint: If you want sales from this new MSO beast (and I mean that in an complimentary way) stop hyping it like Apple does with their products and market it with purpose. Like slash the price, throw in all the options and then wait for the phone to ring off the hook and the riots to begin.

They should have taken a leaf out of Rohde & Schwarz's marketing book.
People went insane over the RTB2004 launch deal, and rightly so.
Although to be fair, it was a much lower end scope, so the price they were able to offer the RTB2004 made it almost serious hobby affordable.
 

Offline Wuerstchenhund

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Just to clarify, Tek had the first real-time oscilloscope up to 20GHz (DPO72004) which came out in Feb 2007.

Looks like you're right, Tek had indeed the first 20GHz real-time scope:
https://web.archive.org/web/20070222220943/http://www.tek.com:80/products/oscilloscopes/dpo70000_dsa70000/

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At the time LeCroy had 11GHz

Not true, at that time LeCroy already had the SDA18000 with 18GHz bandwidth and 60GSa/s sample rate, which actually came out 8 months earlier than the DPO72004 and at a time when the DPO70000 was still limited to 8Ghz and 25GSa/s:
https://web.archive.org/web/20060615065930/http://www.lecroy.com:80/
https://web.archive.org/web/20070111030525/http://www.tek.com:80/products/oscilloscopes/dpo70000_dsa70000/index.html

The practical difference between 18Ghz BW and 20Ghz BW are pretty marginal (for the tasks these scopes are generally used for, the 20Ghz scope won't allow you to do more than a 18Ghz scope), and of course the individual BW steps vary between individual manufacturers (i.e. not all scope manufacturers will have a 20Ghz scope but may have a 22Ghz scope).

Interesting is however how long Tek got stuck at that level while others marched on:

LeCroy achieved 30GHz and 80GSa/s (WaveMaster 830zi) in Feb 2009:
https://web.archive.org/web/20090224035412/http://lecroy.com:80/tm/products/default.asp

And 45Ghz and 120GSa/s in Dec 2010 (WaveMaster 845Zi-A and LabMaster 945Zi-A):
https://web.archive.org/web/20101225135320/http://www.lecroy.com:80/

At the same time, Tek was still stuck with the DPO70000 at 20GHz and 50GSa/s:
https://web.archive.org/web/20101211163642/http://www.tek.com:80/products/oscilloscopes/

And shortly before LeCroy went up to 60Ghz and 160GSa/s (LabMaster 10Zi) in Jan 2012:
https://web.archive.org/web/20120118135329/http://www.lecroy.com/
Tek only made the jump from 20Ghz & 50GSa/s to 33Ghz and 100GSa/s:
https://web.archive.org/web/20120126030535/http://www.tek.com:80/oscilloscope

July 24, 2013: LeCroy demonstrates a lab version of its 100Ghz 240GSa/s scope
https://web.archive.org/web/20131219143511/http://teledynelecroy.com:80/100ghz/
Which then became officially available (LabMaster 10zi) in Dec 2014
https://web.archive.org/web/20141021083059/http://teledynelecroy.com:80/oscilloscope/
while Tek was still stuck with the old DPO70k platform at 33Ghz and 100GSa/s:
https://web.archive.org/web/20141225082629/http://www.tek.com:80/oscilloscope#all

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and Agilent had 13GHz

Correct, in 2007 Agilent were still stuck with the old DSO80k Series with up to 13Ghz (which also suffered from various hardware limitations):
https://web.archive.org/web/20070207230130/http://www.home.agilent.com:80/USeng/nav/-536902447.0/pc.html
However this DSO80k was actually introduced in Dec 2004:
https://web.archive.org/web/20041204090657/http://we.home.agilent.com:80/USeng/nav/-536895900.0/pc.html
The successor DSO90k came out in Feb 2008, still limited to 13GHz and 40GSa/s but now without the limitations of the old platform and better overall performance:
https://d3fdwrtpsinh7j.cloudfront.net/Docs/datasheet/agilent_dso90000a.pdf
(no archive.org link as by then Agilent has started to refuse them scanning their website)

In 2010, while Tek was still sitting at 20Ghz/50GSa/s, Agilent introduced the DSO90k X-Series with BW up to 33GHz and 80GSa/s, and in Nov 2012 the DSO90k Q-Series with up to 63GHz and 160GSa/s (Tek only made the jump to 33GHz and 100GSa/s a year before).


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Today Keysight offers a 63GHz real-time oscilloscope, Tektronix offers a 70GHz and LeCroy offers a 100GHz.

Keysight has stuck at 63Ghz and invested in improving its scope architecture instead, probably because tasks requiring more than 60Ghz are truly niche applications, and I can't say that this was a bad decision.

However, what the above list shows is that, for high BW scopes, stating that manufacturer A had the first X Ghz scope is pretty useless when everyone of them uses different BW steppings. What's important is the overall package, i.e. the BW, and even more so the sample rate (or better the sample rate to BW ratio), the processing backend, and last but not least, the available analysis and measurement options. And unfortunately the whole package is something Tek has been lacking for a very long time.

The MSO5x seems to be a solid scope (although in search of a target market) and gives hope that things in Tek improve, but it's by no far something that "changes everything". God knows we can use more serious competition, would be great if Tek could step up and become one again. Using its new ADC in a entry level scope with strong processing, decent maths and analysis tools and competitive pricing, as suggested in the other MSO5 thread, might be an easier start.
« Last Edit: June 22, 2017, 06:28:16 pm by Wuerstchenhund »
 
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Offline Wuerstchenhund

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Hint: If you want sales from this new MSO beast (and I mean that in an complimentary way) stop hyping it like Apple does with their products and market it with purpose. Like slash the price, throw in all the options and then wait for the phone to ring off the hook and the riots to begin.

They should have taken a leaf out of Rohde & Schwarz's marketing book.
People went insane over the RTB2004 launch deal, and rightly so.
Although to be fair, it was a much lower end scope, so the price they were able to offer the RTB2004 made it almost serious hobby affordable.

It wouldn't work the same way with a lower high-end scope like the MSO5x. Also Tek's pricing seems to be pretty reasonable (not exactly cheap but also not excessive like in the past) and in this class price isn't necessarily a top priority anyways.

As to the RTB2004, I doubt that the launch deal made a huge impact, not only because the numbers available were embarrassingly low (plus the deal was only available in the US, essentially giving Europe and RoW the middle finger). I guess this was because of the very low price, which I doubt covers R&S costs. They should have sold slightly more expensive and globally instead. Even at $3500 it would have been attractive, however the $7k or so R&S wants outside of the promo are excessive.

I doubt the RTB will sell in larger numbers.
 
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Offline nctnico

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Hint: If you want sales from this new MSO beast (and I mean that in an complimentary way) stop hyping it like Apple does with their products and market it with purpose. Like slash the price, throw in all the options and then wait for the phone to ring off the hook and the riots to begin.

They should have taken a leaf out of Rohde & Schwarz's marketing book.
People went insane over the RTB2004 launch deal, and rightly so.
Although to be fair, it was a much lower end scope, so the price they were able to offer the RTB2004 made it almost serious hobby affordable.

It wouldn't work the same way with a lower high-end scope like the MSO5x. Also Tek's pricing seems to be pretty reasonable (not exactly cheap but also not excessive like in the past) and in this class price isn't necessarily a top priority anyways.
First of all: Welcome back!  :-+

Secondly: where would you put the MSO5 series compared to the competition? The Lecroy HDO8000 has been mentioned a couple of times but what has Keysight to match this oscilloscope?
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline Wuerstchenhund

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First of all: Welcome back!  :-+

Thanks! Let's see how long it lasts this time  ;)

Quote
Secondly: where would you put the MSO5 series compared to the competition? The Lecroy HDO8000 has been mentioned a couple of times but what has Keysight to match this oscilloscope?

For me it's difficult to position the MSO5, because, irrespective of its technical capabilities, it appears to be designed as a solution looking for a problem. The 8 channel MSO58 seems (based on the Tek website, the poor datasheet and the videos I've seen) to lack appropriate power analysis software, and power analysis is probably 99% of the market for an 8 channel scope. LeCroy's HDO8000 offers power analysis (there's even a special version of the HDO8000 sold as Motor Drive Analyzer MDA8000), as does the Yokogawa DLM4000 8ch scope. Without power analysis, the MSO58 isn't a very good choice unless you have a very niche task that requires 8 analog channels or say 4 analog + 32 digital channels.

Keysight doesn't have an 8ch scope, but they do have dedicated Power Analyzers and Current Analyzers:

http://www.keysight.com/en/pcx-2746816/ac-power-analyzers?nid=-32119.0&cc=GB&lc=eng&tab=all

http://www.keysight.com/en/pc-2633352/device-current-waveform-analyzers?nid=-32302.0&cc=GB&lc=eng

The 6ch MSO56, well again it's pretty much a solution in search of a problem.

The four channel variant could be interesting, especially if you have use for 'either - or' operation of analog and digital channels, but if you need analysis tools again you're lost because most of the tools available for competing 4ch scopes aren't available for the MSO5.

My predicition is that this scope will be a very tough sell...
« Last Edit: June 22, 2017, 09:47:10 pm by Wuerstchenhund »
 

Offline nctnico

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I'm not really after very advanced analysis tools although I know that is different for other people. What would stand out for me is deep memory, small form factor and peak detect for general purpose use. Keysight (8000 and 9000 series aren't very compact AFAIK) and Lecroy (no peak detect) don't fit the bill for that very short requirement list. 8 channels is always better than having less channels so in the parallel universe where I could spend that much money on a scope I'd get the 8 channel version and be done with it. The price difference will pay itself back that one time where having more than 4 channels saves a lot of time.
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline technogeeky

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... blah blah blah, actual difficult research part, blah blah blah ...


I took the liberty of graphing the information you presented as best as I could (I had to try and extrapolate to earlier years). This is certainly no more accurate than your description, and may be less accurate. It is also less precise (I binned all of the dates into 1 year bins). But I think it gets the same point as your history across, in many hundred fewer words:



 

Offline w2aew

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... blah blah blah, actual difficult research part, blah blah blah ...


I took the liberty of graphing the information you presented as best as I could (I had to try and extrapolate to earlier years). This is certainly no more accurate than your description, and may be less accurate. It is also less precise (I binned all of the dates into 1 year bins). But I think it gets the same point as your history across, in many hundred fewer words:



You missed the Tek 70GHz realtime scope 2015-ish
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Offline Someone

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You missed the Tek 70GHz realtime scope 2015-ish
And they should be step changes rather than slopes....
 

Offline technogeeky

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...

You missed the Tek 70GHz realtime scope 2015-ish

Fixed.

Quote from: Someone
And they should be step changes rather than slopes....

Not fixed.
  • too lazy
  • that is true (because of 1-year binning) but it doesn't invalidate the intended point by Wuerstchenhund
  • lists come in threes




 

Offline Wuerstchenhund

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I'm not really after very advanced analysis tools although I know that is different for other people. What would stand out for me is deep memory, small form factor and peak detect for general purpose use. Keysight (8000 and 9000 series aren't very compact AFAIK)

The DSO9k isn't big but it's an old platform which starts to show its age. Older ones are limited to Windowsxp, and especially the newer ones running Windows 7 are pretty expensive even 2nd hand.

The DSO8k has the traditional scope format with deep housing. Great for stacking but it needs space on a bench. Also the tiny touch screen is barely usable with fingers, you'd either need a stylus or a mouse to operate it. And the whole platform is even older than the DSO9k, plus it's out of support. The good thing is that it's faster and a lot more reliable than the old 54800 Series Infiniiums, and with some luck can be found pretty cheap.

But for a modern compeititor, you'd be looking at the DSO-S, which is a very nice scope.

Quote
and Lecroy (no peak detect) don't fit the bill for that very short requirement list. 8 channels is always better than having less channels so in the parallel universe where I could spend that much money on a scope I'd get the 8 channel version and be done with it. The price difference will pay itself back that one time where having more than 4 channels saves a lot of time.

In this case I'd say the MSO58 could be a viable contender. The 8ch variant also seems to be cheaper than the LeCroy HDO8k(A). And since you don't need advanced analysis (so you probably won't want to run Matlab on the scope) the fact that the MSO5 comes with an embedded OS could be another advantage.

I'd say give it a try, and if you like it and you can live with the UI then it actually might be your perfect scope.
« Last Edit: June 23, 2017, 08:18:21 am by Wuerstchenhund »
 

Offline Wuerstchenhund

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I took the liberty of graphing the information you presented as best as I could (I had to try and extrapolate to earlier years).

Nice!  :-+

Quote
This is certainly no more accurate than your description, and may be less accurate. It is also less precise (I binned all of the dates into 1 year bins). But I think it gets the same point as your history across, in many hundred fewer words:

It does, and although it should be taken with a grain of salt (because the BW steps used by individual manufacturers differ), it does show where most of the innovation in scope technology happens today, and this without talking about it's competitors' scopes  (a lesson to learn for Tek and Keysight, stop the moronic 'us-vs-theirs' comparisons and spend more time improving your own products instead) .
« Last Edit: June 23, 2017, 05:34:17 am by Wuerstchenhund »
 

Online JPortici

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How does the race at wider bandwidth (only!) determine where the most innovation is?

to put it in practical terms, granted that while research is fundamental for progress, then it's up to humble people like me and many other designers to make producs on a stricter budget, with need for a better scope with some of the analysis features that only seem available for the big monsters that costs more than many years of our salary and i think we could use a new line of low/midrange scopes :)

if you ask me the innovation brought by this scope, the real great new thing about this scope is its ASIC.
Since it has actually four interleaved ADCs, I agree with Dave: tek could and SHOULD make one hell of a four channel general purpose scope, simillar and placed exactly at the DSOX-3000T price point, could sell like hotcakes if they won't be lazy and loat it with options and decodes like the keysight

options! we need options! otherwise rigol is capable to deliver bandwidth, memory and samplerate for cheap. why would i have to pay more for the same?

even if keysight is short on memory, the amount of options they give you is astronomical, everything you may ever need, one then overlooks the low memory because being able actually to do something with the signal is more important
 
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Offline GlowingGhoul

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How does the race at wider bandwidth (only!) determine where the most innovation is?


It doesn't. But all it takes is the opportunity for some Keysight (and Tek in this instance) bashing for wienerschnitzel to rush in to remind us how the least successful 1st tear test gear company is really the best, no matter what metric needs to be used to make the point. 
 
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Online JPortici

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i intended that as a trick question ;)

i'll add another point: a big factor for INNOVATION would be a scope that enables third parties or even users to ADD options. if manufacturer doesn't want or care to add "X" option i can at least get around this limitation, which has been questionable since scopes were computers connected to acquisition modules (so at least the 90's for lecroy)... and is absurd today. 1000 bonus points for whoever does it first, in the low/midrange segment

Daniel says he's pushing hard to make keysight release one set of API or some other tool to let users add their own decodes without revealing too much about the architecture...

yeah, the 1000x is for hobbyists with little money but who cares? once you open the can of worms.. and then keysight will be ahead of the others again.
 

Offline Wuerstchenhund

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How does the race at wider bandwidth (only!) determine where the most innovation is?

For a real-time scope, larger BW requires higher sample rates, which means a lot of work has to go into the ADC section. A higher sample rate means a lot more data to process, so the scope has to come with a faster processing platform.

I'm not saying BW alone is always an indicator for innovation, but it's not easy getting a scope to 60Ghz or 100GHz, with sample rates of up to 240GHz (240GSa/s), you can't do that with run-of-the-mill components as you're pushing against the limits of physics.

Shariar did a great video about the 100Ghz scope, which shows some of the difficulties achieving such bandwidths.

Quote
to put it in practical terms, granted that while research is fundamental for progress, then it's up to humble people like me and many other designers to make producs on a stricter budget, with need for a better scope with some of the analysis features that only seem available for the big monsters that costs more than many years of our salary and i think we could use a new line of low/midrange scopes :)

I agree. There's a lot of functionality that seems to be only available in upper mid-range or high-end scopes but which could be easily realized in an upper entry-level scope.

Quote
if you ask me the innovation brought by this scope, the real great new thing about this scope is its ASIC.

I agree.

Quote
Since it has actually four interleaved ADCs, I agree with Dave: tek could and SHOULD make one hell of a four channel general purpose scope, simillar and placed exactly at the DSOX-3000T price point, could sell like hotcakes if they won't be lazy and loat it with options and decodes like the keysight

Well, Tek's new ADC isn't an 8bit ADC, so it wouldn't be an 8bit scope like the DSOX3kT, it would compete with the R&S RTB2004 and the LeCroy HDO4k. And it certainly would be more expensive.

Tek could probably scale down its ADC to 8bit, but it's not sure this is economically viable. Actually, I'd go as far as saying to leave 8bit scopes to the Chinese and focus on 10bit or 12bit scopes.

Quote
options! we need options! otherwise rigol is capable to deliver bandwidth, memory and samplerate for cheap. why would i have to pay more for the same?

even if keysight is short on memory, the amount of options they give you is astronomical, everything you may ever need, one then overlooks the low memory because being able actually to do something with the signal is more important

I agree, although other things (like having an UI that hasn't been designed by someone who hates humans, or not locking up when something demanding is running on the scope, both issues with the DPO/MDOxxxx scopes) are important as well.
 

Offline Someone

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i intended that as a trick question ;)

i'll add another point: a big factor for INNOVATION would be a scope that enables third parties or even users to ADD options. if manufacturer doesn't want or care to add "X" option i can at least get around this limitation, which has been questionable since scopes were computers connected to acquisition modules (so at least the 90's for lecroy)... and is absurd today. 1000 bonus points for whoever does it first, in the low/midrange segment

Daniel says he's pushing hard to make keysight release one set of API or some other tool to let users add their own decodes without revealing too much about the architecture...

yeah, the 1000x is for hobbyists with little money but who cares? once you open the can of worms.. and then keysight will be ahead of the others again.
Tektronix and Keysight have supported Matlab integration on their analysis scopes for some time:
http://literature.cdn.keysight.com/litweb/pdf/5990-3353EN.pdf?id=1619098
http://news.tektronix.com/2001-10-09-Tektronix-and-The-MathWorks-Announce-Connectivity-Between-Oscilloscopes-And-MATLAB
Its always been a bit of a niche as the processing was quite slow (matlab has improved a lot in performance over time) and could only leverage the data that was otherwise captured rather than adding new triggers or anything like that. If it was such an innovation and people valued it you'd have heard more about it, I suspect you're just wanting more stuff for free (be it community driven or not).
 

Offline madmax96

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First to have a 20Ghz scope

What model? I'm only aware of the DPO70000 and this wasn't the first 20+GHz real-time scope (LeCroy and later Agilent were there before), although Tek was stuck with that design for a long time (and still offers it) while the competition marched on to 73Ghz, and only came out with a 70Ghz scope (DPO70000SX) after the competition launched 100GHz.

There's also the CSA8000 sampling scope but again it wasn't any faster than the competition (Agilent DCA, LeCroy WaveExpert).

Tek Dpo70000 20Ghz was the first in the world in 2007 . Agilent and LeCroy has 13Ghz at that time.
 

Offline Wuerstchenhund

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i'll add another point: a big factor for INNOVATION would be a scope that enables third parties or even users to ADD options. if manufacturer doesn't want or care to add "X" option i can at least get around this limitation, which has been questionable since scopes were computers connected to acquisition modules (so at least the 90's for lecroy)... and is absurd today. 1000 bonus points for whoever does it first, in the low/midrange segment

As 'Someone' already said that has been available for a long time from all three major manufacturers. However, it also requires that the scope can run user software, Many upper mid-range and pretty much all high-end scopes are based on desktop Windows so this isn't an issue, but it is for most embedded platform scopes (which is what low end/entry level scopes are).

Then there's the question if it's worth opening up an embedded platform, because I still can't run many tools due to the lack of memory and processing power.

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Daniel says he's pushing hard to make keysight release one set of API or some other tool to let users add their own decodes without revealing too much about the architecture...

As far as I'm aware the GW Instek GDS-2000E scope allows downloadable "apps", although it seems there's nu supporting documentation for writing them (yet?).

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yeah, the 1000x is for hobbyists with little money but who cares? once you open the can of worms.. and then keysight will be ahead of the others again.

Not sure about that. Low-end/entry-level scopes are often used like analog scopes, and it's unlikely a lot of users would be interested to develop plugins for a proprietary, closed low performance platform.
 

Offline EEVblog

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Well, Tek's new ADC isn't an 8bit ADC, so it wouldn't be an 8bit scope like the DSOX3kT, it would compete with the R&S RTB2004 and the LeCroy HDO4k. And it certainly would be more expensive.

I wonder the price of the Tek 12bit ADC vs the R&S 10bit.
10bit is enough for a low to mid level bench scope to be a differentiator.
If it's a choice between a cheaper 10bit and a more expensive 12bit, all thing being equal, customers will pick the 10bit.
 

Offline Wuerstchenhund

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Tek Dpo70000 20Ghz was the first in the world in 2007 . Agilent and LeCroy has 13Ghz at that time.

I guess you missed my reply above then, as I already showed that LeCroy had 18Ghz/60Gsa/s in 2006.  ;)

Besides, BW firsts are useless as manufacturers use different BW steppings, and at the end of the day the whole package (BW, sample rate to BW ratio, processing performance) is relevant.
 

Online JPortici

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I agree. There's a lot of functionality that seems to be only available in upper mid-range or high-end scopes but which could be easily realized in an upper entry-level scope.

Yes! That's exactly what i mean. I may not need multi hundred MHz bandwidth or multi GS/s sample rate, but i'd still find a use for less ubiquitous decodes (and trigger on such decodes) or other features that are basically ignored if you spend less than 10k for a scope

One of the reasons that i massively use a picoscope, despite its evident limitations.

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Well, Tek's new ADC isn't an 8bit ADC, so it wouldn't be an 8bit scope like the DSOX3kT, it would compete with the R&S RTB2004 and the LeCroy HDO4k. And it certainly would be more expensive.

Tek could probably scale down its ADC to 8bit, but it's not sure this is economically viable. Actually, I'd go as far as saying to leave 8bit scopes to the Chinese and focus on 10bit or 12bit scopes.

I disagree. Besides the fact that from my understanding the ASIC already runs at bit at full samplerate, I keep insisting that the power of a DSO is in its options.
Keysight seems to be the most flexible to me and for what i need to do.. and significantly cheaper than the HDO4K. for a small business this is important.
I don't even consider the RTB because of lacks of options.
If i only want to look at a pretty signal with low noise / high bitdepth there are cheaper solutions

I agree on the importance of a UI and a good platform behing the scope, this new tek seems a great step forward for them
another set of reasons i like picoscopes, despite their limitations

Re: third party options.. yes it would be nice to have more things "for free", if you're not going to give them anyway..
granted it's probably easier to do on a windows based scope, i don't see why you couldn't implement such a thing even for embedded OS.
 


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