Author Topic: The end is near. LeCroy and their 100GHz scope...  (Read 19939 times)

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Offline rsjsouzaTopic starter

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Re: The end is near. LeCroy and their 100GHz scope...
« Reply #25 on: July 26, 2013, 11:21:51 am »
They are designed for characterisation of new systems and technology, or as you say, measurement of circuits with dedicated build in test point for this very purpose.

That is usually the case of development boards used with the initial silicon samples of new devices: the board itself is a sea of SMA connectors tied to the multiple pins of the device for proper characterization but have absolutely no practical/everyday use. Not surprisingly these boards never see the light of the day, but are beautifully constructed (some are almost 1cm thick depending on the device complexity!)
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Offline amyk

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Re: The end is near. LeCroy and their 100GHz scope...
« Reply #26 on: July 26, 2013, 11:50:29 am »
How do you even generate that 100 GHz test signal? Jesus, that's a tenth of a terahertz! :scared: DC to daylight indeed...

I swear, at the rate we're going, we'll have scopes that can probe literal daylight by the time I'm 40...
192GHz in 2006: http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a464948.pdf
300GHz in 2011: http://www.ee.ucla.edu/~razavi/papers/Journals/BRApr11.pdf

Generating the signal doesn't seem particularly difficult, compared to being able to measure it...
 

Offline w2aew

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Re: The end is near. LeCroy and their 100GHz scope...
« Reply #27 on: July 26, 2013, 11:59:09 am »
I checked for any sources on Agilent using frequency interleaving, but I couldn't find any. Must have been mistaken on that.

So they poke fun at Lecroy for using frequency domain interleaving while they use time domain interleaving?

The Agilent scopes that are >33GHz BW do appear to using a form of Digital Bandwidth Interleaving, similar to LeCroy in their Real-Edge mode. They don't say that this is what their doing, but detailed analysis of various things like noise floor, fine resolution frequency and phase response, etc. all point to the use of this technique.
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Offline rsjsouzaTopic starter

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Re: The end is near. LeCroy and their 100GHz scope...
« Reply #28 on: July 26, 2013, 02:33:19 pm »
192GHz in 2006: http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a464948.pdf
300GHz in 2011: Generating the signal doesn't seem particularly difficult, compared to being able to measure it...

Back in 1996 I recall a presentation by HP (before it became Agilent) showcasing their EESOF program and the presenter mentioned the Patriot missile (used thoroughly in the first gulf war) had a close range radar system operating at 93GHz on its guidance module...
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Oh, the "whys" of the datasheets... The information is there not to be an axiomatic truth, but instead each speck of data must be slowly inhaled while carefully performing a deep search inside oneself to find the true metaphysical sense...
 

Offline c4757p

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Re: The end is near. LeCroy and their 100GHz scope...
« Reply #29 on: July 26, 2013, 02:50:50 pm »
192GHz in 2006: http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a464948.pdf
300GHz in 2011: http://www.ee.ucla.edu/~razavi/papers/Journals/BRApr11.pdf

Generating the signal doesn't seem particularly difficult, compared to being able to measure it...

It's still damn impressive, just slightly less. Thanks for the links, though - good reading!


otherwise, its like a 5 years old kid messing with DS1052E.

Five-year-old me would have loved a DS1052E. Though I probably would have put my foot through the screen, or found some equally stupid way to break it...
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Online Marco

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Re: The end is near. LeCroy and their 100GHz scope...
« Reply #30 on: July 26, 2013, 03:13:53 pm »
The novelty is that it's a real-time scope with 100 GHz bandwidth.

right, but they cheating a bit "DBI works by splitting the input signal into multiple frequencies which are downconverted to the bandwidth of the digitizing system. Then it acquires and digitizes each band, using DSP to re-assemble them and compensate for distortion".
How are frequency domain interleaved ADCs more cheating than time domain interleaved ADCs.
 

Offline c4757p

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Re: The end is near. LeCroy and their 100GHz scope...
« Reply #31 on: July 26, 2013, 03:28:12 pm »
Hmm. On one hand, the technology involved in splitting up signals into manageable chunks like that is fascinating. On the other hand, I do love the simplicity of a traditional scope: BNC - analog crap - CRT deflection plates...

Of course, even most basic DSOs split the signal into AC and near-DC.
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Online Marco

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Re: The end is near. LeCroy and their 100GHz scope...
« Reply #32 on: July 26, 2013, 06:15:07 pm »
Of course, even most basic DSOs split the signal into AC and near-DC.
Hmm, how do you mean? I thought ADCs in DSOs were generally DC coupled.
 

Offline c4757p

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Re: The end is near. LeCroy and their 100GHz scope...
« Reply #33 on: July 26, 2013, 06:34:31 pm »
They are, but the signal is often split before a lot of the signal conditioning circuitry and recombined right before the ADC driver amplifier. We've got schematics floating around here somewhere for the DS1052E frontend, I'll see if I can find them.

Here. Not as dramatic as I may have made it sound, but the AC does skip across the first amplifier through that 330pF capacitor.

I guess this is how the majority of scope frontends work; I was more or less just remarking that even though the naive description is often that the signal drives the CRT "directly" through the amplifiers, that's not really true. Or rambling because I just woke up. You decide.
« Last Edit: July 26, 2013, 06:39:12 pm by c4757p »
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Online Marco

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Re: The end is near. LeCroy and their 100GHz scope...
« Reply #34 on: July 26, 2013, 07:06:37 pm »
Ah okay, yeah I read about that in some books on oscilloscope front end design ... basically the ideal HF amplifier is a source/emitter follower, but they have lousy 1/f noise and DC offset stability, whereas opamp circuits have great 1/f noise and DC offset stability.
 

Offline c4757p

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Re: The end is near. LeCroy and their 100GHz scope...
« Reply #35 on: July 26, 2013, 07:14:16 pm »
There are whole books on oscilloscope front end design?? Any you can recommend? I'd love to see if I can find one...
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Offline synapsis

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Re: The end is near. LeCroy and their 100GHz scope...
« Reply #36 on: July 26, 2013, 07:30:49 pm »
There are whole books on oscilloscope front end design?? Any you can recommend? I'd love to see if I can find one...

I second this.

So far all I've read about high speed ADCs is this paper, which was pretty informative for an amateur like me. (PDF)

https://www.ece.cmu.edu/research/publications/2009/CMU-ECE-2009-010.pdf
 

alm

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Re: The end is near. LeCroy and their 100GHz scope...
« Reply #37 on: July 26, 2013, 07:44:52 pm »
There is the 'slightly dated' Tektronix Circuit Concepts series. It is probably by far the most detailed information you'll find, though. Back when they were showing to the world how awesome their designs were; before the lawyers and MBAs came in and started calling it property. Pretty sure it does not discuss ADCs, however ;).
 

Offline c4757p

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Re: The end is near. LeCroy and their 100GHz scope...
« Reply #38 on: July 26, 2013, 07:48:00 pm »
Oh, that's awesome, thank you!

Is is possible to feel nostalgia for a time you never experienced? :'(
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JuanPC

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Re: The end is near. LeCroy and their 100GHz scope...
« Reply #39 on: July 26, 2013, 08:07:22 pm »
How do you couple a 100 GHz signal from a system into a scope without disturbing it (the signal)? I am depending on the more knowledgeable people here to school me.
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JuanPC

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Re: The end is near. LeCroy and their 100GHz scope...
« Reply #40 on: July 26, 2013, 08:16:43 pm »
I swear, at the rate we're going, we'll have scopes that can probe literal daylight by the time I'm 40...

Well my eyeball can probe daylight and "measure it" - i.e., put it into a visual frame for my brain ... but perhaps what it's seeing is being disturbed by itself and what I see isn't really what's out there - outside my brain.  :-//

OK I'm stopping myself before somebody else does.
 

Online Marco

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Re: The end is near. LeCroy and their 100GHz scope...
« Reply #41 on: July 26, 2013, 08:30:12 pm »
There are whole books on oscilloscope front end design?? Any you can recommend? I'd love to see if I can find one...

Well not front end design specifically, but with chapters devoted to it ... can't vouch for the quality, but this is what I found :

Art and Science of Analog Design by Steve Roach
Wideband Amplifiers by P. Staric

Both concerning relatively low (<GHz) bandwidth designs BTW ... old tech, which can be build with discretes.
 

Offline echen1024

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Re: The end is near. LeCroy and their 100GHz scope...
« Reply #42 on: July 26, 2013, 08:33:29 pm »
192GHz in 2006: http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a464948.pdf
300GHz in 2011: http://www.ee.ucla.edu/~razavi/papers/Journals/BRApr11.pdf

Generating the signal doesn't seem particularly difficult, compared to being able to measure it...

It's still damn impressive, just slightly less. Thanks for the links, though - good reading!


otherwise, its like a 5 years old kid messing with DS1052E.

Five-year-old me would have loved a DS1052E. Though I probably would have put my foot through the screen, or found some equally stupid way to break it...

I got my first Multimeter when I was 5. It was a cruddy little POS, but provided hours of fun. I graduated to a Tek 2205 at 10 years old, and have been using that scope for 13 continuous (I'm in High school), and recently bought a Siglent SDS1102CNL.
I'm not saying we should kill all stupid people. I'm just saying that we should remove all product safety labels and let natural selection do its work.

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JuanPC

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Re: The end is near. LeCroy and their 100GHz scope...
« Reply #43 on: July 26, 2013, 08:44:55 pm »
I swear, at the rate we're going, we'll have scopes that can probe literal daylight by the time I'm 40...

Well my eyeball can probe daylight and "measure it" - i.e., put it into a visual frame for my brain ... but perhaps what it's seeing is being disturbed by itself and what I see isn't really what's out there - outside my brain.  :-//

OK I'm stopping myself before somebody else does.

you mean we carry two ultra high frequency spectrum analyzers around in our head in the form of eyeballs  ? and two low frequency spectrum analyzers in the form of ears ? and our skin can sense infrared ? and we even have a built in signal generator that can do arbitrary signals. it's called a mouth. and its all connected via electrical interfaces to a massive computer and data storage system called a brain.

dammit. why do we need all that complicated testgear then !
one day, i took a small dose of LSD-25, half a dose,
the walls were breathing in and out...
like this, but faster:

like this fast, but real:


i wanted to know why i see that...
i stared at the mirror in my bathroom,  firmly looked into my eyes,
and noticed that both eyes were moving synchronized with a Horizontal LFO near 1Hz-5Hz,
like a Synth,
and i guessed that was causing the Walls to Breath,

was impressive to think how "the machine works."

like this, but less crazy  :-DD
« Last Edit: July 26, 2013, 08:53:37 pm by JuanPC »
 

Offline FrankBuss

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Re: The end is near. LeCroy and their 100GHz scope...
« Reply #44 on: June 13, 2014, 09:58:23 pm »
How do you even generate that 100 GHz test signal? Jesus, that's a tenth of a terahertz! :scared: DC to daylight indeed...
There is a newer video where they explain how they generate a test signal, and some more background information:

He says that there is no test equipment that can generate a 100 GHz sine wave, so they are using a 16.6 GHz signal generator and a six times multiplier, feeded to the scope through a wave guide (see video 1:40). Doesn't look like a standard BNC :)

They don't say how much the scope costs, but of course it is too expensive if you have to ask.
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Offline dannyf

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Re: The end is near. LeCroy and their 100GHz scope...
« Reply #45 on: June 13, 2014, 10:32:19 pm »
Quote
I think the fast real-time Agilent scopes do the same.

Yes. And the el cheapo scopes do that as well.
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Offline Rufus

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Re: The end is near. LeCroy and their 100GHz scope...
« Reply #46 on: June 13, 2014, 11:21:17 pm »
Quote
I think the fast real-time Agilent scopes do the same.

Yes. And the el cheapo scopes do that as well.

Resurrect a year old thread to quote with no attribution a sentence devoid of any meaning without context so you can add another equally meaningless sentence. Nice job.
 

Offline Dave Turner

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Re: The end is near. LeCroy and their 100GHz scope...
« Reply #47 on: June 13, 2014, 11:37:56 pm »
Astronomers have been working with Terahertz and above for years.  Optical processors have supposedly been 'around the corner' for some time. Hmm maybe 100Ghz and above should be looked at from another angle.
 

Offline dannyf

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Re: The end is near. LeCroy and their 100GHz scope...
« Reply #48 on: June 13, 2014, 11:48:44 pm »
The technology is there: there are optical amplifiers for fiber transmissions.
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Offline Noise Floor

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Re: The end is near. LeCroy and their 100GHz scope...
« Reply #49 on: June 14, 2014, 04:14:39 pm »
I'd like to see them move that signal off center and see how stable it is.  Ever since the whole "12 bit" scope marketing exaggeration they did, I have my doubts on how useful this really is. 

I have little doubt it works in a very small band, but unless you are targeting a specific application in the band, you are likely served better by a more overall well rounded and engineered scope.  People get hung up on some top level specs and fail to account for real world use in many cases is my perspective.
 


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