Rigol announces Phoenix chipset and UltraVision II technology platform

[EEVblog]

What is the source of these additional pictures Dave? Trump and the Russians?

A Ukrainian guy in a trench coat in a dark alley at midnight.

[nctnico]

"Fashionable"

They wrote that especially for pascal_sweden since he tends to care about that sort of things in test equipment 

[MasterTech]

We live in interesting times indeed. Industries and competition are evolving so fast...

[egonotto]

"A Ukrainian guy in a trench coat in a dark alley at midnight."

That are the best

[simone.pignatti]

 

[pascal_sweden]

This level of investment really brings a lot of excitement to the T&M market. If successful, the chipset proves (once again) how entry level markets can act as enablers of technology. I have seen both examples in the electronics industry, though.

I guess you mean Chinese SoC companies like Allwinner Technology and Rockchip, which are both very successful.

http://www.allwinnertech.com/

http://www.rock-chips.com/a/en/

[rsjsouza]

This level of investment really brings a lot of excitement to the T&M market. If successful, the chipset proves (once again) how entry level markets can act as enablers of technology. I have seen both examples in the electronics industry, though.

I guess you mean Chinese SoC companies like Allwinner Technology and Rockchip, which are both very successful.

http://www.allwinnertech.com/

http://www.rock-chips.com/a/en/

I don't know the history of these companies, but seeing them today I think they can be considered two successful examples. Although Rigol's merit in developing a device without any mainstream IP such as an ARM core is, in my opinion, a much more remarkable feat.

My sentence was not entirely clear, but I (and others for sure) have seen the opposite also happen: players in specific entry level markets completely undermine the investments in higher end technology. One example that comes to mind is the counterfeit market; another one is the race to the bottom in cost that takes down quality with it...   

[rf-design]

Please notice the small word introduced in the news text


This new platform release at the same time, RIGOL Synchronization also revealed a carrying " Phoenix"chipset and UltraVision II technology new digital oscilloscope platform prototype,it has 4 GHz analog bandwidth,20GSa/s real-time sampling rate, its release marks RIGOL global reach 4 GHz Bandwidth digital Oscilloscopes one of the five manufacturers, among the digital oscilloscope technology the first tier.

http://int.rigol.com/News/Detail/23

To present results of a prototype instead of a ready product is a message to investors too.

The time horizont for a new product depend on the outcome of the prototype result. As many knows silicon respins including all work before and after easy could mean significant fractions of a year.

[EEVblog]

I have the official english press release:

SuZhou, China – June 8, 2017 – Today RIGOL Technologies continues our 19 year

history of Test and Measurement innovation with the announcement of our new
Phoenix Oscilloscope chipset and the Ultravision II oscilloscope architecture.

These technology innovations, years in development, will help transform the RIGOL
portfolio allowing RIGOL to address the needs of higher performance applications.

There are 3 chips in the Phoenix chipset (each named after stars in the Phoenix
Constellation). The analog front end chip (named Beta Phoenicis) will allow for
front end bandwidth of 4GHz with highly integrated capability allowing for simplified
and highly reliable front end design. The Signal Processing Chip (named Ankaa)
supports 10GSa/s sampling with bandwidth up to 6GHz and the Probe Amplifier
Chip (named Gamma Phoenicis) will support a 6GHz Active Differential probe.

The ASICs are based entirely on RIGOL IP and were developed entirely inhouse.
“Over the past 19 years RIGOL has proven ourselves to be an innovator in the Basic
and Value segments of the Oscilloscope market” says Rico Wang, President of
RIGOL Technologies “but with the introduction of this new chip set, developed
through years of painstaking research and development, RIGOL will now be able to
bring the RIGOL value proposition to more performance oriented applications.”

The Phoenix Chipset enables RIGOL to revolutionize our scope performance with
the new UltraVision II architecture. These enhancements will lead to products with
significantly faster waveform capture rates, new filtering and triggering capabilities,
and unprecedented memory depths and search capabilities. When combined with
Rigol Marketing

2017 Newsletter in July
the HW performance of the Phoenix Chipset, Ultravision II will transform the
customer value proposition in the 1-4GHz oscilloscope market.

At the chipset launch review in Suzhou China RIGOL demonstrated our prototype
scope utilizing Phoenix and Ultravision II. With 4GHz Bandwidth, 20GSa/sec
realtime sample rate and 1Billion point memory depth it shows that there will soon
be a new player in the performance oscilloscope market.

Mike Rizzo, General Manager of RIGOL North America says, “We are very excited
for the introduction of products utilizing the new Phoenix chipset. It will allow us to
bring our unique RIGOL price performance value proposition to a new class of
customers needing advanced instrument performance and application support.

RIGOL will formally announce our first products utilizing the Phoenix Chipset before
the end of 2017 with initial customer shipments planned in Q42017.”
About RIGOL Technologies:
RIGOL Technologies is transforming the Test and Measurement Industry. Our
premium line of products includes Digital and Mixed Signal Oscilloscopes, Spectrum
Analyzers, Function/Arbitrary Waveform Generators, Programmable Power
Supplies and Loads, Digital Multimeters, Data Acquisition Systems, and application
software. Our test solutions combine uncompromised product performance,
quality, and advanced product features; all delivered at extremely attractive price
points. This combination provides our customers with unprecedented value for their
investment, reduces their overall cost of test, and helps speed time to completion
of their designs or projects.

[PedroDaGr8]

This is not surprising, the Chinese government has been driving a LOT of money into R&D research. The military in particular really would like to have domestic T&M companies to do business with, instead of relying on the west. It was only a matter of time before this happened, good job on Rigol to make it happen.

Sent from my LGLS992 using Tapatalk

[EEVblog]

This is not surprising, the Chinese government has been driving a LOT of money into R&D research. The military in particular really would like to have domestic T&M companies to do business with, instead of relying on the west. It was only a matter of time before this happened, good job on Rigol to make it happen.

That would be interesting to know if they did get government funding for this?

[nctnico]

Not a word about upgrading the firmware department!

[blueskull]

That would be interesting to know if they did get government funding for this?

While I think Chinese government doesn't care about domestic oscilloscope technology as they can get Keysight or Tek scopes easily even for military usage, they are interested in the ADC technology.

I have no idea if Rigol is funded, but the chance is real. I have came across a report that says western high speed telecom chips have more than 99% gross margin (compared with silicon wafer cost) and Chinese government is funding a lot of domestic companies to clone this technology and bring the cost down. This was originated in telecom field and benefited Huawei and ZTE and some other telecom companies (both infrastructure and terminal), and then to CPU/RAM/FLASH business as there are quite some prototype super computers in China using domestically made (domestic IC design, TSMC/ST fab service).

It makes sense to expand that research funding opportunity to high speed ADC since direct RF sampling and DDC/DUC is the trend and if Chinese telecom companies like Huawei and ZTE want to keep the leadership in 5G gears, like they do now in 4G gears, they need to find a way to make it happen, both technically and economically.

[Wuerstchenhund]

I have the official english press release:
[...]

[...] At the chipset launch review in Suzhou China RIGOL demonstrated our prototype
scope utilizing Phoenix and Ultravision II. With 4GHz Bandwidth, 20GSa/sec
realtime sample rate and 1Billion point memory depth it shows that there will soon
be a new player in the performance oscilloscope market.

We'll see about that. Just having the BW and the sample rate isn't enough in this class, the large amounts of data that such a scope generates require a very fast processing backend. Also, customers rightfully expect a wide range of measurement and analysis capabilities in this class.

Mike Rizzo, General Manager of RIGOL North America says, “We are very excited
for the introduction of products utilizing the new Phoenix chipset. It will allow us to
bring our unique RIGOL price performance value proposition to a new class of
customers needing advanced instrument performance and application support.

I'll believe it when I see it. The last "Rigol price performance value proposition" outside the low-end/entry level class brought us the DS6000, an overpriced and slow embedded scope with very little measurement and analysis capabilities where after several years on the market major functionality is still buggy.

The mid-range and high-end scope markets are a lot less price sensitive than the low-end/entry level segment, and if Rigol believes they can make an impression with another overpriced, buggy scope with an entry level feature set then they're again in for a big disappointment.

[npeter]

Any news about the new oscilloscope models?

Should I hold my breath for a this year announcement maybe with some good initial promotions like R&S did with the RTB2000 series?
They said that the new line would be available in Q4 2017.

[nctnico]

I'd wait with buying anyway. If you wait the price may be lowered, irritating bugs fixed and hacks may become available. R&S still hasn't fixed many bugs in the RTB2000 and they don't have a stellar record when it comes to fixing bugs in a timely manner. All in all the initial deal isn't that good. I want to use a scope and not pay for the privilige to be a software beta tester.