EEVblog #587 - Tektronix MDO3000 Mixed Domain Oscilloscope Teardown

[EEVblog]

What's inside Tektronix's new MDO3000 Mixed Domain Oscilloscope?
Does does a teardown and looks at the circuitry and how they can get such a cheap 3GHz RF spectrum analyser to work.
Datasheets:
HMC624 Digital RF Attenuator: https://www.hittite.com/content/documents/data_sheet/hmc624alp4.pdf
HMC311 InGaP HBT GAIN BLOCK https://www.hittite.com/content/documents/data_sheet/hmc311lp3.pdf
HMC429 VCO: https://www.hittite.com/content/documents/data_sheet/hmc429lp4.pdf
Lattice LFE3 FPGA: http://www.mouser.com/ds/2/225/Lattice%20-%20ECP3-270819.pdf
77725 LDO: http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/tps77725.pdf
i.MX6 ARM Applications Processor: http://cache.freescale.com/files/32bit/doc/fact_sheet/IMX6SRSFS.pdf
PECL Buffer: http://www.micrel.com/_PDF/HBW/sy10-100ep11u.pdf
ADF4360 VCO: http://www.analog.com/static/imported-files/data_sheets/ADF4360-7.pdf
1Gb DDR2 SDRAM: https://www.micron.com/parts/dram/ddr2-sdram/mt47h64m16hr-25e
Secrets Behind the MDO Spectrum Analyser: http://www.tek.com/dl/48W-28882-2%20%20%20MDO%20Performance%20WP_.pdf

[bronson]

Great review Dave.  Drool.

Pretty sure your 8-pin "360" package is actually an "09E".  Pulsar QE-09-E maybe?

http://www.pulsarmicrowave.com/spec_sheets/QE-09-E.pdf?140108

The pinout might agree: pin 2 wyes out into pins 5 and 8, then it's mirrored back together on the other side.

I'm horrible at RF though so I could be completely wrong.  Would love to hear a little more detail on how this little strip works.

EDIT: good shots just before and after the 48:00 minute mark.

[mikeselectricstuff]

The "Must cover/May cover" is for conformal coating to reduce leakage of the battery supply - you can see the coating on the PCB in the vid
 

[bronson]

Gotta say, I'm not a fan of that airflow...  Those narrow heatsink fins will be clogged with gray gunk in two years.  Might be an issue since the video hints that the Tek is running near the edge of the heat envelope anyway.

The boards that the air flows across will get gunky too.  But, since they're all digital, that seems a minor aesthetic concern.

If it must blow in, would a filter have added so much to the cost...?

[mikeselectricstuff]

I reckon the central chip is the ADC, the other two doing data/memory management for the scope channels.
Presumably 10gsps, which is interleaved down for scope mode

[Psi]

Just a thought, those large blobs of solder on the RF connector maybe intentional to make the solder surface smooth and avoid sharp points for RF reasons.

[EEVblog]

The "Must cover/May cover" is for conformal coating to reduce leakage of the battery supply - you can see the coating on the PCB in the vid

Ah, so it is, didn't notice that in the light and on the screen.

[EEVblog]

I reckon the central chip is the ADC, the other two doing data/memory management for the scope channels.
Presumably 10gsps, which is interleaved down for scope mode

It could be a 4 channel ADC, that was one of my guesses.
From a wafer process point of view that might make sense, as it's a 5GHz input bandwidth ADC, high end stuff.
Although integrating a 2CH ADC with memory management might make sense from a throughput point of view.
The two outer chips at the very least do contain memory management, although I suspect they do more than that.

[orion242]

Nice teardown 

[mikeselectricstuff]

A 10gsps ADC is pretty near alien tech, probably with some wacky-arse exotic process - I doubt you'd put memory control type stuff on the same die, though I suppose it could be a multi-die package.

[EEVblog]

A 10gsps ADC is pretty near alien tech, probably with some wacky-arse exotic process - I doubt you'd put memory control type stuff on the same die, though I suppose it could be a multi-die package.

They are only 5Gsps each. Presumably the <500MHz models that are only 2.5Gsps each use the same 5Gsps capable chip. They would stagger them all to get the 10Gsps required for the RF sampling.

Perhaps Alan can find out for us...

[zapta]

How a complex PCB like the main one is typically designed? A single person does all the work? A team split the work and merges the sub designs?  It's look took complex for one person and I can't see how the design is split.

Edit: I am referring to the PCB layout, not the electronic design.

[nitro2k01]

I  noticed something relatively insignificant in the PSU. Notice how the TO-220 on the riser board has one leg bent forward. The only reason I can think of for doing that is mechanical support. They really, really don't want anything flapping in the breeze!

[bronson]

Ha, they didn't spare any conformal coating did they?  It just covers Must Cover.

Maybe the May Cover guy was was a serious pessimist.

Right around 43:00 for anyone else who wants to see what anti-leakage looks like.

[AlphZeta]

Just checked, the model Dave had (MDO3104) cost JUST $13,900.00

[darrell]

The 8 pin parts bypassing the amplifier in the RF section are almost certainly switches. Macom MASW-007107 is pin compatible. https://www.macomtech.com/datasheets/MASW-007107.pdf

The two white things on the output of the HMC429 are Mini-Circuits LFCN series low pass filters. The forked line just past those is a Wilkinson splitter. The extra length on one side is 180 degrees to create differential output. My guess is the the differential RF from the input as well as the VCO signal go down vias to a differential pair near the transformer.

[EEVblog]

How a complex PCB like the main one is typically designed? A single person does all the work? A team split the work and merges the sub designs?  It's look took complex for one person and I can't see how the design is split.
Edit: I am referring to the PCB layout, not the electronic design.

That PCB layout can easily be done by one person. In fact it is best done by one person. As former full time PCB designer myself, that complexity board is not an issue. Usually a several week job, or usually more. There is often lots of back-and-forth forth with the circuit designer, production and product design people.
The actual bulk layout itself is only several days work once you get everything in place ready to route.

[NiHaoMike]

I  noticed something relatively insignificant in the PSU. Notice how the TO-220 on the riser board has one leg bent forward. The only reason I can think of for doing that is mechanical support. They really, really don't want anything flapping in the breeze!

That looks more like it's for clearance.

[BravoV]

I  noticed something relatively insignificant in the PSU. Notice how the TO-220 on the riser board has one leg bent forward. The only reason I can think of for doing that is mechanical support. They really, really don't want anything flapping in the breeze!

Don't think the psu manufacturer bent it, its the standard staggered TO-220 pins that is originally formed that way from that chip manufacturer.

[robrenz]

Nice teardown Dave, I learned a lot 

[Smokey]

That looks more like it's for clearance.

Watch out with this.   No matter how you bend them, the leads are always the same distance apart when they enter the package.

[EEVblog]

Watch out with this.   No matter how you bend them, the leads are always the same distance apart when they enter the package.

Yes, but you have a datasheet to tell you what the max spec is. You're on your own when you mount it on a board.

[Zad]

Could the 'touch sensor' be for condensation detection?

[EEVblog]

Could the 'touch sensor' be for condensation detection?

With the solder mask on?

[hikariuk]

I love that they still use the same blue colour for the back that my ancient Tektronix 5115 oscilloscope sat behind me used.  Little things please me (I'm a simple person, really).

[Chipguy]

The chip with the unknown logo at 39:29:

That is a:
Vishay Siliconix DG411L Precision Monolithic Quad SPST Low-Voltage CMOS Analog Switches
http://www.vishay.com/docs/71399/dg441l.pdf

... yes I am a nerd, I have chosen my nickname for a good reason 

[Lukas]

A 10gsps ADC is pretty near alien tech, probably with some wacky-arse exotic process - I doubt you'd put memory control type stuff on the same die, though I suppose it could be a multi-die package.

Check out this guy's website: http://poulton.net/papers.html He seems to be the ADC greybeard at Agilent doing ADCs for almost 30 Years now.

"A 20-GSample/s 8b ADC with a 1-MByte Memory in 0.18-um CMOS"
http://poulton.net/papers.public/2003isscc_18_1_pg_slides.pdf http://poulton.net/papers.public/2003isscc_18_1_pg.pdf Very interesting read.

[ElektroQuark]

That looks more like it's for clearance.

Watch out with this.   No matter how you bend them, the leads are always the same distance apart when they enter the package.

But the clearance between PCB pads is bigger if you bent them.

[EEVblog]

"A 20-GSample/s 8b ADC with a 1-MByte Memory in 0.18-um CMOS"
http://poulton.net/papers.public/2003isscc_18_1_pg_slides.pdf http://poulton.net/papers.public/2003isscc_18_1_pg.pdf Very interesting read.

Just the input buffer draws 1 watt!
It's got a lot of inputs to drive though I guess.

[bktemp]

I did not see any flash memory next to the main processor. Therefore the two devices connected to the FPGA must contain the firmware for the whole system.

[Icarus]

I'm no microwave expert but maybe that's the configuration ?

[RupertGo]

Is this it? Is all test equipment now signal->ADC->CPU->screen, with nothing left to do but a bit of front end and a lot of software?

Slightly sad, really.

(Loved the teardown, btw)

[German_EE]

Icarus, you beat me to it

The signal from the VCO is split into two, maybe a 90 degree difference or maybe 180 degree. These signals are then applied to the transformer and the four small black devices which are almost certainly diodes, together forming an RF mixer.

[cS2014]

Hi, thanks Dave for this tear down and the EEVblog in general it as reawakened my interest in electronics.

I find these tear downs of high end scopes baffling and compelling in equal measures. I find the differential pair layouts beautiful and the waveguide filters and processing magical..yes i have an artistic side lol. I am in the middle of the tear down at the moment and was just struck with a similarity to a product i came across a few years back when looking into shortwave radio receivers and the concept of software defined radio.

Microtelecom do one called SDR / Perseus and Software Radio Laboratory do the QS1R Receiver, which uses the LTC2208 16 bit ADC. I was struck by the analogy of the above receivers sampling the RF input from the aerial and the scope sampling the RF from the connector inputs.

Take it easy Dave,
Colin

[EEVblog]

Is this it? Is all test equipment now signal->ADC->CPU->screen, with nothing left to do but a bit of front end and a lot of software?

As far as spectrum analysers are concerned, no, not really. Only the very basic ones like the MDO3000 can get away with such apparent simplicity.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Maybe that 'touch sensor' on the PCB is some kind of cheap humidity sensor?

Not humidity but perhaps condensation?
Might be interesting to scope the terminals

[c4757p]

Is this it? Is all test equipment now signal->ADC->CPU->screen, with nothing left to do but a bit of front end and a lot of software?

There's definitely a move in that direction - but keep in mind, we'll always need test equipment to test the test equipment.

[Frost]

Not humidity but perhaps condensation?
Might be interesting to scope the terminals

The loops are open, but could it be a small PCB RFID antenna?

[Carrington]

I  noticed something relatively insignificant in the PSU. Notice how the TO-220 on the riser board has one leg bent forward. The only reason I can think of for doing that is mechanical support. They really, really don't want anything flapping in the breeze!

Agilent 4000X series uses the same PSU.

[Rasz]

A 10gsps ADC is pretty near alien tech, probably with some wacky-arse exotic process

"2x64-GS/s ADC core generates 128 billion analog-to-digital conversions per second, with a total power consumption of 2.1 W; the dual DAC consumes 1.7 W. The cores achieve 5.8 ENOB value of up to 10 GHz and spurious-free dynamic range greater than 43 dB"

http://www.lightwaveonline.com/articles/2014/03/semtech-announces-ultra-high-speed-adc-dac-cores.html

 

[free_electron]

take along hard look at the balun. the gold wire goes form RF-in to the VCO. ( top left to top right pin)
the black wire sits on the bottom.

So the Balun is the mixer. the bottom path coming form the vco is a delay line.

you mix incoming with vco in the top coil, and then mix it again with a delayed vco signal and pick it off

so they are mixing in the balun.

[Macbeth]

Gotta say, I'm not a fan of that airflow...  Those narrow heatsink fins will be clogged with gray gunk in two years.  Might be an issue since the video hints that the Tek is running near the edge of the heat envelope anyway.

The boards that the air flows across will get gunky too.  But, since they're all digital, that seems a minor aesthetic concern.

If it must blow in, would a filter have added so much to the cost...?

Sadly, I work in a terribly dusty environment (My House) - I have 4 dogs and the shedded fur and dust is nay on impossible to control. My PC's start overheating after a few months, and what do I find? GFX and CPU coolers chock full of dust and fur.

Thankfully I have an air compressor and blast the insides out every 6 months or so and get a whole new lease of life. I'm sure my bench equipment could survive the odd air blast too.

[Monkeh]

You might consider using filters..

[PA0PBZ]

so they are mixing in the balun.

You need something nonlinear to mix, I don't think the balun qualifies.


And by the way, who is this Alan (Wooky?) Dave is talking about, where's his youtube channel?

[cosmos]

I think the balun and the 180deg delay is there simply to reject the dither signal (its fixed frequency so cancellation should be good)
Probably so the VCO signal does not propagate the wrong way and reach the frontend LNA where it would cause (unwanted) mixing.

[SeanB]

W2AEW on Youtube. The real work is done digitally in the firmware after the ADC stage. The mixer could be those small black chips on the board after the mixer, looks like a set of PIN diodes there. About the right configuration for a mixer, and they are unmarked. and there is a quarter wave delay along with the transmission line splitter as well. Seems they removed input protection diodes as well, the pads are there, the labels are there and there is solder screened on the points but they are unpopulated.

[EEVblog]

I think the balun and the 180deg delay is there simply to reject the dither signal (its fixed frequency so cancellation should be good)

No, the dither signal is removed in the digital down conversion process.

[cosmos]

I think the balun and the 180deg delay is there simply to reject the dither signal (its fixed frequency so cancellation should be good)

No, the dither signal is removed in the digital down conversion process.

The dither is supposedly just added to the input signal to increase the dynamic range after processing.
If that addition is done directly to the output signal of the LNA in front of the VCO then I suspect it could have unwanted non linear effects and that this would cause unwanted mixing to happen in the LNA.
So I view the balun and the strip lines as a trap for VCO signals so they can not propagate backwards to the LNA in the input.
Alternatively it might be useful to not have VCO emissions leaking out of the coax connector on the frontpanel when the amplifier is bypassed.

Edit: never mind that theory about rejection, on second looks the delay line is just the balun for the signal from the VCO to make it differential (the ADC wants it like that)
Notice how the signal takes of on an inner layer up and to the left just after the balun just in the same place where it met the signal from the VCO.

[tom66]

What are the main disadvantages of doing this very simple RF frontend?
I imagine you're trading reduced RF costs for increased ADC costs -- but if your scope already needs 10GSa/s ADC, then you may as well?

[jancumps]

What are the main disadvantages of doing this very simple RF frontend?
I imagine you're trading reduced RF costs for increased ADC costs -- but if your scope already needs 10GSa/s ADC, then you may as well?

That you can't use scope and spectrum analyzer together as a true mixed domain tool?

[digital]

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/icon_smile_thumbsup.gif One of your best videos yet also informative commentary I learned a lot from this video.Thanks Dave

[kudzo]

Hi Dave, did you use the tagarno for the close-ups?

[tom66]

That you can't use scope and spectrum analyzer together as a true mixed domain tool?

I was more referring to "why doesn't ever spectrum analyser do this?" most of them have RF front ends about half the instrument wide, and then a cheap(ish) ~100MSa/s 12-bit ADC.

It seems they've got a really low cost RF front end but a high ADC cost - but that's not a problem if you already need that for your scope functionality.

It would be nice to have 2ch ADC and 2ch spec-analyser, with the analyser having half bandwidth, that's a reasonable compromise IMO.

[open loop]

I wonder if the scope is measuring he temperature of the AWG chip as well and as it was disconnected the firmware would have quickly issued the high temperature error?

Another thing could be that the firmware tried to set the fan speed but failed and then issued a temp warning.?

[Hydrawerk]

Dave, could you please measure the waveform update rate of MDO3000? I wonder how it changes when you turn on all analog channels and decoding or digital channels...

[Hydrawerk]

Here is a competitive fact sheet made by Tektronix guys. MDO3000 vs. DSOX3000. Yes, the MDO3000 is more feature rich, but it cannot reach 1000000 waveforms per second... Well, somebody does not need that update rate and prefers longer memory and that famous waveform inspector feature.

[Hydrawerk]

Does MDO3000, MSO3000 or MSO2000 have a segmented memory or something similar like that Rigol waveform recorder? It seems that not at all. :-(

[TMM]

I was more referring to "why doesn't ever spectrum analyser do this?" most of them have RF front ends about half the instrument wide, and then a cheap(ish) ~100MSa/s 12-bit ADC.

Because there's only so much noise floor you can get out of an 8bit ADC by dithering and 10GSa/s @ 12bits doesn't come cheap.

[EEVblog]

For all those who guessed what that "touch sensor" on the PCB was, it's nothing of the sort. The PCB designer got bored and wanted to put a symbol of a sine wave on an old school round scope screen. The vias connect to the internal ground plane.
FAIL IMO

[EEVblog]

Here is a competitive fact sheet made by Tektronix guys. MDO3000 vs. DSOX3000. Yes, the MDO3000 is more feature rich, but it cannot reach 1000000 waveforms per second... Well, somebody does not need that update rate and prefers longer memory and that famous waveform inspector feature.

Typical marketing comparisons, they simpyl won't show the competitive product winning on anything, if it does they simply leave it out.

[Dave]

Your teardown experience is really showing, with the datasheet add-ins and all of that good stuff. This episode was a real joy to watch.

[tom66]

Here is a competitive fact sheet made by Tektronix guys. MDO3000 vs. DSOX3000. Yes, the MDO3000 is more feature rich, but it cannot reach 1000000 waveforms per second... Well, somebody does not need that update rate and prefers longer memory and that famous waveform inspector feature.

I have to admit, I was weighing up scopes recently and was considering the 2000X but I'm disappointed that a £850+ scope only has a megapoint of sample memory.  It was pretty much a deal breaker for me as I frequently analyse serial comms over long time periods. Anything less than about 10 megapoints (for a high end scope) is just not worth it, IMO.

[Dave Turner]

Dave,

As a point of interest how many planes are there on the boards?

[Hydrawerk]

I have to admit, I was weighing up scopes recently and was considering the 2000X but I'm disappointed that a £850+ scope only has a megapoint of sample memory. 

When you turn on serial decode, the memory drops to 500kpoints per channel at my DSOX2000. Still not bad.

[TVman]

If it must blow in, would a filter have added so much to the cost...?

That was probably something they forgot?

[Hypernova]

Here is a competitive fact sheet made by Tektronix guys. MDO3000 vs. DSOX3000. Yes, the MDO3000 is more feature rich, but it cannot reach 1000000 waveforms per second... Well, somebody does not need that update rate and prefers longer memory and that famous waveform inspector feature.

Agilent's Apr 1st promotion makes a lot of sense now. In raw performance Agilent may no longer win but if you price them out fully optioned the MDO3000 is no competition. Outside of RF heavy uses protocol decoding is much more useful.

Does make you wonder what Agilent is going do with their next gen Magazoom ASIC.

[EEVblog]

Does make you wonder what Agilent is going do with their next gen Magazoom ASIC.

It will be interesting to see. They are surely working on it, they wouldn't have just been sitting back for the last 3 years gloating about the success of the X series.
They will almost certainly have to go to an external memory architecture, as they won't be able to fit enough memory on the ASIC die to compete. 4MB was enough 3-4 years ago, but the market has changed a lot since then.

[hikariuk]

For all those who guessed what that "touch sensor" on the PCB was, it's nothing of the sort. The PCB designer got bored and wanted to put a symbol of a sine wave on an old school round scope screen. The vias connect to the internal ground plane.
FAIL IMO

10/10 for style; 1/10 for implementation?

[tom66]

Does make you wonder what Agilent is going do with their next gen Magazoom ASIC.

It will be interesting to see. They are surely working on it, they wouldn't have just been sitting back for the last 3 years gloating about the success of the X series.
They will almost certainly have to go to an external memory architecture, as they won't be able to fit enough memory on the ASIC die to compete. 4MB was enough 3-4 years ago, but the market has changed a lot since then.

I think Rigol use commodity DDR2/3. It's got a 64 bit or 128 bit bus. If you have enough pins on the FPGA you can clock in up to 16 bytes per cycle, so you can use cheap 400MHz DDR and be able to capture up to 6.4GSa/s.

Probably want a small capture buffer on the ASIC for the intensity grading, but doesn't need to be any more than (points on screen) x (num waveforms per display refresh).

Wonder what it would take to do that million wfms/s on an FPGA like Rigol do (getting about 50,000 on the DS2000 series.)

[deweff]

Why is everyone complaining about the thermal design.  Tek didn't design it to be run with the case open.  Why is anyone surprised?  It overheats when you take the fan away from the heatsinks.  Duh.  Don't do that.

[Rigby]

Duh.  Don't do that.

Yeah, I agree.  I don't think folks are complaining about the airflow design alone, it's how dust will accumulate inside.  The owner's manual doesn't have a procedure for cleaning dust from inside, so it would appear that they don't see it as an issue.

[echen1024]

For all those who guessed what that "touch sensor" on the PCB was, it's nothing of the sort. The PCB designer got bored and wanted to put a symbol of a sine wave on an old school round scope screen. The vias connect to the internal ground plane.
FAIL IMO

How did you find this out? Tek surely didn't release a document stating that "PCB Engineer gets bored designing latest product, adds vintage touch"

[Rigby]

There are Tek folks on this board, one springs to mind immediately.  And we know that Dave has gone to that person for Tek information before.

We also know that he has enough inroads into Tek that he got a fully specc'd MDO3000 for free.

[deweff]

Yeah, I agree.  I don't think folks are complaining about the airflow design alone, it's how dust will accumulate inside.  The owner's manual doesn't have a procedure for cleaning dust from inside, so it would appear that they don't see it as an issue.

Well that makes more sense.  But still, I don't think any of the main scope makers give directions on how to open up their scopes.  In general they frown upon users opening up scopes.  And it's not like they could have done anything other than air cooling (even "water cooling" has a radiator through which you blow air).  I don't think this is different for Tek than it is for any other scope maker.  If you're really worried about dust, you could rig it up with a car air filter on the intake 

We also know that he has enough inroads into Tek that he got a fully specc'd MDO3000 for free.

Tek probably sent him a scope for marketing purposes.

[aramosfet]

Hi,

I have a basic question. It was mentioned in the video that this scope does ~200,000 waveform updates per second. But the LCD display refresh rate is likely to be far less. No more than 60-100 hz. How does the synchronisation work? Or am I missing something here?

Thanks,

[Omicron]

Hi,

I have a basic question. It was mentioned in the video that this scope does ~200,000 waveform updates per second. But the LCD display refresh rate is likely to be far less. No more than 60-100 hz. How does the synchronisation work? Or am I missing something here?

Thanks,

How it usually works is that multiple acquisitions are combined into one image where the intensity of each pixel is changed according to how often that pixel was "on" in the different acquisitions, so it gives you an "analogue scope" kind of feel.

Alternatively the image intensity of a pixel can also be determined as the average of a number of samples in a larger single acquisition (e.g. this scope can sample 10M points, much more points than there are pixels on the screen horizontally).

In practise I believe it's a combination of these two.

[bronson]

For all those who guessed what that "touch sensor" on the PCB was, it's nothing of the sort. The PCB designer got bored and wanted to put a symbol of a sine wave on an old school round scope screen. The vias connect to the internal ground plane.
FAIL IMO

That's a pulse train if I've ever seen one.  Definitely NOT a sine wave.  Also, that round scope's vertical gain is cranked rather high.

Probably a good thing that guy designed the board and not me.  If I'd got that idea in my head, I might try to turn this into a bitmap:

[Hydrawerk]

TEK has clearly lost the lead to Agilent in the middle to upper range scope sectors  (do you hear me Danaher Marketing Morons?)

But Agilent is unable to produce a scope with true 1mV/div vertical resolution...

[EEVblog]

How did you find this out? Tek surely didn't release a document stating that "PCB Engineer gets bored designing latest product, adds vintage touch"

I was told so by a Tek employee who would know these things.

[EEVblog]

No doubt about it. Tek is playing catchup.  I don't think Tek will ever be on top again, even with integrated mixed domain stuff.

I don't know about that. The new MDO3000 looks to be very competitive.
And like I said, if they threw in the 3GHz RF option for free, they'd sell like hot cakes, so they have that up their sleeve if they find sales are lacking, just like Agilent are now throwing in the kitchen sink.

[w2aew]

No doubt about it. Tek is playing catchup.  I don't think Tek will ever be on top again, even with integrated mixed domain stuff.

I don't know about that. The new MDO3000 looks to be very competitive.
And like I said, if they threw in the 3GHz RF option for free, they'd sell like hot cakes, so they have that up their sleeve if they find sales are lacking, just like Agilent are now throwing in the kitchen sink.

...and I really like what I see coming down the pike on the ultra-high end of things - a new proprietary sampling technique to give 70+GHz analog BW, 200GS/s (called Asynchronous Time Interleaving), with lower noise than the microwave block down-conversion + reassemble in DSP approach used by Agilent's RealEdge and LeCroy's DBI technologies...

[mikeselectricstuff]

TEK has clearly lost the lead to Agilent in the middle to upper range scope sectors  (do you hear me Danaher Marketing Morons?)

But Agilent is unable to produce a scope with true 1mV/div vertical resolution...

Agilent can produce whatever they think the market wants. The fact that 1mv/div is not common suggests few people ask for it.

[EEVblog]

Agilent can produce whatever they think the market wants. The fact that 1mv/div is not common suggests few people ask for it.

Also, in the case of the Agilent, it's actually only a 2mV/div front end. The 1mV is just software fiddling.
Maybe they concentrated on better performance at the high end?
So if you do need a low level front end, the Agilent is certainly not the best choice. Rigol probably have this market sown up (+ Hameg too I think?).

[Hydrawerk]

BTW according to the MDO3000 manual, there is no demodulation in the spectrum analyser feature. :-(

[echen1024]

Agilent can produce whatever they think the market wants. The fact that 1mv/div is not common suggests few people ask for it.

Also, in the case of the Agilent, it's actually only a 2mV/div front end. The 1mV is just software fiddling.
Maybe they concentrated on better performance at the high end?
So if you do need a low level front end, the Agilent is certainly not the best choice. Rigol probably have this market sown up (+ Hameg too I think?).

Hameg go to 1mV/div.

[Rigby]

Hameg go to 1mV.

how's 10uV grab ya?

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/looking-for-goodinexpensive-bench-power-supply/msg169147/#msg169147

[echen1024]

Hameg go to 1mV/div.

how's 10?V/div grab ya?

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/looking-for-goodinexpensive-bench-power-supply/msg169147/#msg169147

*drools over keyboard* I just love the Tek 24xx analogs and the 7000 series.

[Steffen]

I'm curious if the MDO3000 run some kind of embeddet Windows or if they run some other software. I think TDS3000 series run on VxWorks with Tek UI. MSO/MDO5000B scopes run Windows 7 Ultimate 64Bits.
What the hell is wrong with the manufacturers shipping them with Microsoft Windows? If you plug it into the network, you need antivirus and Windows Updates. If you do so, you may lose warranty.
Do the companies really believe, that customers replace expensive devices when some software company decides to drop support for a ceratain product?

[Rigby]

They use Windows because it is FAR easier to build up a UI on Windows than it is to come up with an operating system or an embedded platform on those scopes.

Windows isn't used for acquisition, or math or anything else, just UI.  ASICs do all the work.

[Lukas]

The MDO4000 use some sort of embedded Linux (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/tek-dpomsomdo-easter-egg/), i guess the MDO3000 as well.

[Steffen]

Windows isn't used for acquisition, or math or anything else, just UI.  ASICs do all the work.

Sure, but in this case you just buy an totally overpriced regular standard performance computer with measurement attachment. I know analyzers with Win NT 4.0 and Win 2000. Price somewhere in the 5 to 6 digit region. Don't even think of installing Win XP or Win7. Insecure as hell, even XP based hardware if you plugin to network. At least you can use a seperate network, but as measurement slave in the field? I'm not amused.

[dr.diesel]

Insecure as hell

I have run into this problem on several occasions.  Some companies absolutely refuse network access to Windows machines that don't run their corporate antivirus, with no exceptions.  Most are oblivious to the fact that test equipment runs an OS, but it's still against the rules and could get you banned as a vendor or contract worker if they found out.

[hikariuk]

Insecure as hell

I have run into this problem on several occasions.  Some companies absolutely refuse network access to Windows machines that don't run their corporate antivirus, with no exceptions.  Most are oblivious to the fact that test equipment runs an OS, but it's still against the rules and could get you banned as a vendor or contract worker if they found out.

Quite a lot of ECDIS and radar display units onboard ships are running Windows.

[dr.diesel]

Quite a lot of ECDIS and radar display units onboard ships are running Windows.

Yeah, some companies are ran by knowledgeable sane people, other Fortune 100 IT departments are managed by Satan himself.

[Rigby]

other Fortune 100 IT departments are managed by Satan himself.

By now, I'm sure Satan has delegated most of the work.  He needs only to look at a few of my former bosses to learn some things.

[hikariuk]

Quite a lot of ECDIS and radar display units onboard ships are running Windows.

Yeah, some companies are ran by knowledgeable sane people, other Fortune 100 IT departments are managed by Satan himself.

Mostly it comes down to allocation of resources and what is actually value adding (i.e. what the customer wants to pay for).  The customer doesn't want to pay for you to write an OS from scratch.  Any resources you expend in that direction are not contributing to the value of your product.  So you don't do it, you find an existing product that gives you what you need and you licence it. 

The decision is also partly coloured by the question "what platforms do we/our developers already know?".  A lot of people know the Win32 API.  It's also coloured by what was available at the time development started; some of these products might have their origins in the 80s and 90s.  If you were starting a product from scratch now you might well looking at using something based on Linux instead (I know we looked at switching once).

[tom66]

It's interesting that Rigol use their own custom OS (probably an RTOS of some form) and they work fine with that. Boot time isn't particularly fast, though. It seems they've written or used pre-existing USB and TCP/IP stacks to do most of the work. Such features would be baked into a Linux kernel, but why overcomplicate it?

[Monkeh]

Windows isn't used for acquisition, or math or anything else, just UI.  ASICs do all the work.

Sure, but in this case you just buy an totally overpriced regular standard performance computer with measurement attachment. I know analyzers with Win NT 4.0 and Win 2000. Price somewhere in the 5 to 6 digit region. Don't even think of installing Win XP or Win7. Insecure as hell, even XP based hardware if you plugin to network. At least you can use a seperate network, but as measurement slave in the field? I'm not amused.

You are aware that under the umbrella of 'Windows' come products with an entirely unrelated codebase to desktop systems, yes?

[vvanders]

Windows isn't used for acquisition, or math or anything else, just UI.  ASICs do all the work.

Sure, but in this case you just buy an totally overpriced regular standard performance computer with measurement attachment. I know analyzers with Win NT 4.0 and Win 2000. Price somewhere in the 5 to 6 digit region. Don't even think of installing Win XP or Win7. Insecure as hell, even XP based hardware if you plugin to network. At least you can use a seperate network, but as measurement slave in the field? I'm not amused.

You are aware that under the umbrella of 'Windows' come products with an entirely unrelated codebase to desktop systems, yes?

But that wouldn't play well into the mantra that windows is evil and could never be a part of a good product. 

[hikariuk]

Windows isn't used for acquisition, or math or anything else, just UI.  ASICs do all the work.

Sure, but in this case you just buy an totally overpriced regular standard performance computer with measurement attachment. I know analyzers with Win NT 4.0 and Win 2000. Price somewhere in the 5 to 6 digit region. Don't even think of installing Win XP or Win7. Insecure as hell, even XP based hardware if you plugin to network. At least you can use a seperate network, but as measurement slave in the field? I'm not amused.

You are aware that under the umbrella of 'Windows' come products with an entirely unrelated codebase to desktop systems, yes?

Yeah.  Windows CE is an entirely separate code base to Windows Embedded, which is based off the current mainline NT kernel products.  You also get access to a large chunk of the source code of portions of WinCE that may need to be customized for your particular hardware, iirc.

Although the fact that WinCE is now called Windows Embedded Compact doesn't really help make matters clearer.

[Hydrawerk]

I am looking forward to a review of MDO3000. BTW I like it's big and durable rotary handle. It is much better than that little one at many Agilent scopes like DSOX2000

[Hydrawerk]

A short video with random playing with this new scope.

[xenxen]

Is it possible to blow up the spectrum analyser by using the wrong reference level in this particular case? As an example, if the input of the spectrum analyser is 0 dBm and the ref level is set to -40 dBm?

[w2aew]

Is it possible to blow up the spectrum analyser by using the wrong reference level in this particular case? As an example, if the input of the spectrum analyser is 0 dBm and the ref level is set to -40 dBm?

In this case, 0dBm input won't cause damage at any reference level setting.

[David Hess]

They use Windows because it is FAR easier to build up a UI on Windows than it is to come up with an operating system or an embedded platform on those scopes.

Windows isn't used for acquisition, or math or anything else, just UI.  ASICs do all the work.

As a bonus, the instrument will come with all of the Windows GUI bugs we have come to expect like units scrolling off the right side of the numeric entry box where we cannot see them, strobe effects do to interface updates, variable interface latency, and drop down lists with just a couple entries and a scroll bar which take up more space and time than the whole list would have taken if all of it had been displayed to start with.  Oh, and crashes requiring a hard reboot by removing power.  Now we can feel right at home.

[Rigby]

Windows CE/Windows Embedded Compact is not Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP/7/8/8.1.

The GUI bugs you're familiar with are almost always going to be developer foul-ups where they aren't considering different DPI settings, or they've really got a silly way to update the UI while work is going on.  As UI toolkits go, the Windows desktop/server stuff is pretty effin' solid compared to others that are available (closed or open source.)  you may not like the OS they're bound to, or you may not like the look, but they do work when they're used correctly.

[David Hess]

Windows CE/Windows Embedded Compact is not Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP/7/8/8.1.

The GUI bugs you're familiar with are almost always going to be developer foul-ups where they aren't considering different DPI settings, or they've really got a silly way to update the UI while work is going on.  As UI toolkits go, the Windows desktop/server stuff is pretty effin' solid compared to others that are available (closed or open source.)  you may not like the OS they're bound to, or you may not like the look, but they do work when they're used correctly.

The last Tektronix oscilloscope I evaluated runs Windows 7 and displayed all of the problems I listed.

[Rigby]

The last Tektronix oscilloscope I evaluated runs Windows 7 and displayed all of the problems I listed.

ah, ok.  I was speaking of not-that-highend scopes like the MDO3000.

My employer has several tek scopes that run Windows 7 as well, and they have unpatched bug-infested dungpiles for operating systems.  And, because the thing is calibrated, you're not supposed to go patching the OS.  I draw the line at using operating systems that aren't at least somewhat real-time for things above the 1GHz range.

[David Hess]

The last Tektronix oscilloscope I evaluated runs Windows 7 and displayed all of the problems I listed.

ah, ok.  I was speaking of not-that-highend scopes like the MDO3000.

It was an MSO/DPO5000 series that I evaluated.  I certainly would not turn down using one but my preference would be for a lower performance but better working instrument.

My employer has several tek scopes that run Windows 7 as well, and they have unpatched bug-infested dungpiles for operating systems.  And, because the thing is calibrated, you're not supposed to go patching the OS.  I draw the line at using operating systems that aren't at least somewhat real-time for things above the 1GHz range.

My understanding is that Tektronix replaced Windows XP with Windows 7 in their newer instruments.

[David Hess]

I just received a Tektronix marketing email recommending that since support for Windows XP is now deprecated, I should protect my investment by buying a new oscilloscope running Windows 7.  I am a little confused about how that would protect my expensive investment in an older oscilloscope and what happens when Windows 7 is no longer supported?

[Rigby]

They'll want you to protect that investment by chucking it in the bin and buying a fresh, new investment. 

So we're clear, what I think they're saying is that "protect your investment" means "get rid of your valuable investment and replace it with a new valuable investment."

I think I know why they use desktop operating systems now, rather than the longer supported embedded operating systems.

[w2aew]

The reality is that for the DPO7000 and 70000 series scopes, there is an upgrade program to bring *that scope* to Win7.  For older generations of scope, there are trade-in programs...

[David Hess]

The tone of the email just struck me as nefariously mercenary.

[echen1024]

Now when is this review coming? Would love to see all the features.

[TVman]

Now when is this review coming? Would love to see all the features.

I don't he's going to do it...................

[dexters_lab]

I just received a Tektronix marketing email recommending that since support for Windows XP is now deprecated, I should protect my investment by buying a new oscilloscope running Windows 7.  I am a little confused about how that would protect my expensive investment in an older oscilloscope and what happens when Windows 7 is no longer supported?

surely in a scope the underlying OS is going to have so little interaction with the internet it would mean any new exploits would be rendered almost useless on such a device

[EEVblog]

Now when is this review coming? Would love to see all the features.

I don't he's going to do it...................

A full review showing "all the features" is not a trivial thing to shoot. It can take more than a full day, and end up with 150-200 clips. Probably two full days work by the time you stuff around and setup test and comparisons etc and then edit the thing. So it has not been easy to slot this into the schedule.

[Hydrawerk]

I am looking forward to it.

[David Hess]

I just received a Tektronix marketing email recommending that since support for Windows XP is now deprecated, I should protect my investment by buying a new oscilloscope running Windows 7.  I am a little confused about how that would protect my expensive investment in an older oscilloscope and what happens when Windows 7 is no longer supported?

surely in a scope the underlying OS is going to have so little interaction with the internet it would mean any new exploits would be rendered almost useless on such a device

There is also the problem of USB carried malware.  Hopefully Windows in these instruments is configured to disable Autoplay by default on external USB media but I think there is a recovery CD for reimaging the internal hard drive which could preclude that.  I was told that there is reimaging media for the oscilloscopes which use Windows 7.

Segregation will help a lot but unfortunately one of the big draws for test instruments that use Windows are the ability to directly share files over the network with other systems and remote network access.  As long as there is a reimaging procedure available, I would not care.  Just blow the system software away if it gets infected and start over.

I wonder which instruments use Windows XP or any desktop OS.  Currently it looks like the MSO5000 series and above.

[elektronchika]

Does anybody have any information about the AWG? It is constructed with one, let's say, FPGA. But where is the analog back-end? Waveform DAC, amplitude and offset DAC, etc.? Or maybe there are any other ICs on the bottom of this board. It can't be seen in the video.

Regards!

[kilohercas]

Does anybody have any information about the AWG? It is constructed with one, let's say, FPGA. But where is the analog back-end? Waveform DAC, amplitude and offset DAC, etc.? Or maybe there are any other ICs on the bottom of this board. It can't be seen in the video.

Regards!

In some pdf file about MDO3000 series i found pictures of ADC and DAC wafer , and they brag that they developed some new technology. If you look tear down, that huge bga have common mode choke, that ,means it is generating differential signal directly from chip, and later r converted to single end 50R constant output (50R output just rescales AWG to 2x lower amplitude compared to High Z output)