Very interesting project, I wanted to ask a few questions related to it. Do you plan to add a 10mhz clk input to synchronize signals from tested devices? If not, is the current hardware version of this oscilloscope suitable for such a modification? Can you give an estimated cost of making 5 pieces of pcb in JLPCB? Is making them very expensive? Does this pcb have to have gold-plated paths?
Thanks. There is an external trigger in (SMA on back panel), which could be driven with an external 10 MHz square wave. You would then still be triggering off of the internal ADC clock (800 MHz), but immediately after an edge of your 10 MHz clock. So you'd have ~1 ns of jitter with respect to your external 10 MHz clock edges.
If that is not acceptable jitter performance, there is an external clock input (SMA) that could be used to drive the whole scope, replacing the 50 MHz oscillator on board. But I hadn't planned to route that connection to the back (or front) panel. It's just sitting next to the FPGA.
I'm actually not so familiar with the use cases where syncing with an external device is required, or the specifications of such a setup. Can you elaborate on your setup and requirements please?
The PCBs are not expensive, 5 of them cost about $300. This was only possible by completing the routing on "only" 10 layers, and without blind or buried vias. Not easy, given the 1mm and 0.8mm BGAs with 16x16=256 and 22x22=484 pins, and 56+8 LVDS pairs needed! I *think* you're joking about gold-plated paths - there is standard gold-plated ENIG finish on the boards, but that's not very costly. The usual FR4 does just fine up to a few GHz. Of course you want to specify the stack up and design the traces (and differential traces) to be 50 Ohm, but nothing special is required.
The main cost of the device is the components. Things with 2+ GHz of bandwidth are not cheap. The ADC alone is $180, in quantity 100. Even the relays are $15 each. But it's still going to be *much* cheaper than any other scope out there with 2 GHz bandwidth. Pricing will be announced soon when the CrowdSupply campaign goes live. And early supporters will get a good discount. Sign up on that page for updates.