EEVblog #342 - Agilent 90000 Oscilloscope Teardown

[Monkeh]

Another nice image from the SM:

Well would you look at that, it works exactly the way I thought it did.

[Eliminateur]

so the trigger FPGA might be that naked virtex4, what kind of MONSTER FPGA could be the main?, a Stratix V or IV?
then again the V might be too new for this design(it's 28nm and they're using a s775 motherboard from the 45nm era...)

i wonder how they arranged the pcie lanes considering there's only a x1 lane on the northbridge.... and you can't combine it with the other root complex on the southbridge(which has it's lanes used by the pcie x4 slot).
UNLESS that x1 limitation doesn't applies "per se" and they used it fully from the NB...

[Monkeh]

so the trigger FPGA might be that naked virtex4, what kind of MONSTER FPGA could be the main?, a Stratix V or IV?
then again the V might be too new for this design(it's 28nm and they're using a s775 motherboard from the 45nm era...)

i wonder how they arranged the pcie lanes considering there's only a x1 lane on the northbridge.... and you can't combine it with the other root complex on the southbridge(which has it's lanes used by the pcie x4 slot).
UNLESS that x1 limitation doesn't applies "per se" and they used it fully from the NB...

They're only using one lane. It could be one of the SB lanes (it has SIX, not FOUR!), but if I were them I'd be using the NB PCI-E 2.0 lane. They'll need a clock signal as well, which runs them down to three pairs. That's one lane and change. They may actually be using the extra pair for presence signals.

[EEVblog]

With this massive fans I was expecting a fair amount of dust inside. Dave, did you had it cleaned?

No cleaning.

Dave.

[EEVblog]

Nice find in the service manual!
I wonder what "Hedwig" is on the acquisition board? An internal code name for a custom chip?

Dave.

[Eliminateur]

Nice find in the service manual!
I wonder what "Hedwig" is on the acquisition board? An internal code name for a custom chip?

Dave.

As it stands in the schematic, looks like it might be the mem controller, some serious Harry Potter(HP, he-he-he) fans there

Monkeh, hmm letsee, we have 4 wires down each SATA cable and a x1 link needs... 2 pairs for data, one pair for clock, yup, there it is, the two cables i had forgotten completely about clock pair.
there's not enough pairs left for anything else(highly doubt the're running the i2c pair, probably ground for spacing)

[Short Circuit]

...(highly doubt the're running the i2c pair, probably ground for spacing)

Actually, what about SMBus (slowish I2C) to access all those fan controllers on the backplane board,
and a bunch of voltage and temperature monitors probably?
Of course can be done from the PCI express as well, but having some monitoring fairly independent
from the really expensive bits&pieces sounds like a good idea...

[Monkeh]

Monkeh, hmm letsee, we have 4 wires down each SATA cable and a x1 link needs... 2 pairs for data, one pair for clock, yup, there it is, the two cables i had forgotten completely about clock pair.
there's not enough pairs left for anything else(highly doubt the're running the i2c pair, probably ground for spacing)

They may be using the remaining pair for card presence. I'm not familiar enough with PCI-E to know if they can get away without it.

As Short Circuit just suggested, the block diagram shows fan control. It could be on that spare pair, actually. There aren't any other connectors going that I recall.

[DarkPrince]

Thanks Dave for the wonderful view of the insides. Very nice!

Ironically yesterday there was a showcase from Agilent at my work place... guess what was there! Two wonderful Infiniium 9000 series scopes. One lower range (3 Gsps? and one over 30Gsps). Awesome to see them in person. Of course they were demonstrating the eye diagram when I arrived. 

[amspire]

Nice find in the service manual!
I wonder what "Hedwig" is on the acquisition board? An internal code name for a custom chip?

Dave.

It looks like Agilent have started giving names to modules, so that the memory controller is called Hedwig and the timebase IC is Wahoo, and the preamplifier is Oak.

The names could come from locations near the Agilent factory. If they are near Atlanta, then the Wahoo valley has an Oak harbour, and nearby there is a town of Hedwig.

I have no idea where the Agilent 90,000 design team are actually located but Agilent do seem to offer jobs in Atlanta.

Richard.

[NiHaoMike]

The build quality looks great as expected, but the failure rate is unexpectedly high from what I've seen at work. Not even the HP computers in the lab have that sort of failure rate.

[amspire]

The build quality looks great as expected, but the failure rate is unexpectedly high from what I've seen at work. Not even the HP computers in the lab have that sort of failure rate.

You would be very brave to buy a scope like this without a service contract. This is not a mass produced item, so there will definitely be bugs and design errors.

[Eliminateur]

...(highly doubt the're running the i2c pair, probably ground for spacing)

Actually, what about SMBus (slowish I2C) to access all those fan controllers on the backplane board,
and a bunch of voltage and temperature monitors probably?
Of course can be done from the PCI express as well, but having some monitoring fairly independent
from the really expensive bits&pieces sounds like a good idea...

hmmm IIRC in the video, i didn't see a tach wire on those Delta fans.
But in the block diagram and schematic i don't see anything that indicates smbus conection, that dotted line from the fans to b4 intrigues me, it could be the fan tachos (or at least the upper smaller fan) connected to the LPC controller on the motherboard.
I wonder which cpu are they using, maybe a C2Q something along the lines of a E6600 or 9xxx series for brute power?

[T4P]

C2Q and 9000 i doubt, this scope was manufactured recently and the C2Q and the 9000 QCs have gone EOL a long time ago
The only 775 parts last produced are the Pentium Dual Cores (They aren't half bad, quite fast actually but it loses to a A10-4600M < A Laptop Processor! Still...)
The E6600 is EOL too along with the E6200
the only ones in the wild west is E5400/E5700/E6700
Plus i doubt Intel will continue using their 45nm process so yeah i guess Agilent will need a new mainboard although they might have 100's of C2Q left
The last time the 9000's came out of the wild was 4 years ago

[AntiProtonBoy]

Those hybrid modules gave me hard-on. I love exotic electronics.

[firewalker]

Those hybrids would look great on an transparent acrylic box, with laser etched 13 GHz. As a decorative for the desk.

Alexander.

[Eliminateur]

you reminded me of a keychain i had years ago from IBM that had an actual powerpc core inside embedded into the acrylic, it was damn awesome and those 13Ghz hybrids are the perfect size for that

[firewalker]

I have a keychain of the super conductor used inside the LHC.  An some DIY eproms.



Alexander.

[Dread]

To be honest I was really looking forward to a full Teardown.  This was a little like going on a date and getting stopped before you can get your willie wet.

[SeanB]

At the list price Dave probably was suffering some dysfunction at the slight possibility of it not working, even if it was not his fault. Definitely a small moment time.

[EEVblog]

To be honest I was really looking forward to a full Teardown.

Well, they were kind enough to loan it to me, and asked me not to tear it down, so I did the best I could :->

Dave.

[Toddd]

If I'd had been lent that device, I'd be worried about turning the thing on and zapping it with a power surge, I definitely would not be removing any part of the case. In fact, I'd expect them to thread lock the screws. The last scope I borrowed had green gunk over the screws and a 'Warranty void if broken' sticker!

So congrats for going as far as you did!

[Anquietas]

Those hybrid modules gave me hard-on. I love exotic electronics.

Does anyone know if there are publicly available research papers on the operation of these front end MCMs (or similar technology)? I would really like to see this, even if it's a decade or so too early for me.