| Products > Test Equipment |
| Where is the Keysight Megazoom V ASIC? |
| << < (3/39) > >> |
| wraper:
--- Quote from: 2N3055 on February 11, 2022, 09:57:05 am ---If you keep analog front end from 3000T/4000, get rid of aMegazoom IV, put a single 16GS/s (a variant of?) converter from EXR (which would still get you 4GS/s in full channel mode, instead of 2,5GS/s now) and pipe that into Zynq, you would get immensely more powerful platform than now, and 10bit too.... You would literally solve all of the shortcomings of current platform. Pretty much what Rigol is doing, but with better performing components. --- End quote --- Somehow I didn't notice a better performance overall. Performance of Zinq based scopes fall flat beyond certain performance friendly settings and do not actually reach the performance of Megazoom to begin with. Megazoom based scopes perform well regardless. If Zinq is so perfect, why Rigol rolled out their own custom ASICs for their Ultravision II scopes (with Zinq also included)? |
| Martin72:
--- Quote from: EEVblog on February 11, 2022, 09:25:48 pm ---The Keysight is still the market leader in wavefor update speed and processing after 11 years. --- End quote --- The new rigol 70000/ultra-vision III also got 1,000,000wfms/s. |
| nctnico:
--- Quote from: 2N3055 on February 11, 2022, 09:08:58 pm --- --- Quote from: nctnico on February 11, 2022, 11:31:18 am --- --- Quote from: 2N3055 on February 11, 2022, 09:57:05 am ---If you keep analog front end from 3000T/4000, get rid of aMegazoom IV, put a single 16GS/s (a variant of?) converter from EXR (which would still get you 4GS/s in full channel mode, instead of 2,5GS/s now) and pipe that into Zynq, you would get immensely more powerful platform than now, and 10bit too.... You would literally solve all of the shortcomings of current platform. Pretty much what Rigol is doing, but with better performing components. --- End quote --- No. In the end the Zync platform is just a crutch to be able to do some functions in software but in the end the performance can't get nowhere near oscilloscopes that do functions like protocol decoding in hardware. Scopes from Rigol and Siglent can't get even close to the performance and comfort you get from Keysight or R&S where it comes to protocol decoding. In the end you pay for the engineering to do the hardware accellerated decoding. If you want to get close with a (mostly) software solution with low NRE then the only way out is a GPU based platform. --- End quote --- Zynq is just a sea of logic gates together with a fast cpus on a same chip with a fast interconnect. You can load same IP into it that they hardcoded into Megazoom IV. And I don't know what you think hardware decode means in Keysight. Their most advanced Infinium scopes are same software based decoding, like Lecroy, Siglent and the rest. Software based decoding has it's advantages, like for instance where you can enable decoding after you captured signal, --- End quote --- The Megazoom ASIC does decoding in hardware. On a PC based scope you have enough processing power to do decoding in software so needing hardware accelleration is less likely. Being able to change the decoding parameters after an acquisition is handy but if it comes at the cost of reduced memory depth, speed and other limitations, the benefit becomes very small quickly. --- Quote ---And in Zynq you can pipe that to decoders real fast. Not to mention that in Zynq, you can actually use FPGA fabric to have hardware assisted decoding FSMs transparently.. --- End quote --- But what you forget here is that FPGA development is very time consuming (= extremely expensive) and there are not many that master the skills to do FPGA development effectively so most of the lower end scope (B brand) manufacturers opt for a software solution at the cost of lower performance. It works but it is slow and needs all kinds of workarounds (like only decoding what is on screen or larger decimation steps) to get to an acceptable user experience. The only low-end DSO manufacturer I can think of that does decoding inside the FPGA is MicSig. Also keep in mind that the low cost Zyncs don't have that much gates to begin with so it is easy to run out of space. For example: GW Instek uses partial reconfiguration in their Zync based DSOs to load a different trigger engine to trigger on protocols. I guess they ran out of space to simply include all trigger engines and had to resort to a complicated solution. |
| 2N3055:
--- Quote from: EEVblog on February 11, 2022, 09:25:48 pm --- --- Quote from: 2N3055 on February 11, 2022, 09:57:05 am ---If you keep analog front end from 3000T/4000, get rid of aMegazoom IV, put a single 16GS/s (a variant of?) converter from EXR (which would still get you 4GS/s in full channel mode, instead of 2,5GS/s now) and pipe that into Zynq, you would get immensely more powerful platform than now, and 10bit too.... You would literally solve all of the shortcomings of current platform. Pretty much what Rigol is doing, but with better performing components. As for ASICS, they do bring a lot to the table, but not in this range anymore. For that range all can be done in FPGA now. --- End quote --- Then why hasn't anyone else done so with their Zynq based designs? The Keysight is still the market leader in wavefor update speed and processing after 11 years. --- End quote --- Keysight made a whole bunch of new ASICS in the last few years. New EXR and MXR have new ASICS (I guess Keysight spend their money in higher end offering) that enable real-time spectrum mode, DDC, frequency domain triggering etc etc... All of that at very high trigger rate. [/quote] Yeah, but you won't see those asic in a 3 or 4 digit priced scope I'm sure. --- Quote ---Also, people keep forgetting Infiniivision scopes are Keysight entry level scopes... Bottom of the offering range. They won't make new version that has capability of EXR. If they make new version, it will be competitive with offering from other manufacturers in that range. So pretty much not much changes in way it is used and works for user, maybe bigger screen, better resolution and more memory. And that's it.. No more capability. They already newly refreshed mid range. They won't create internal competition. --- End quote --- Maybe, but we still haven't seen a new design after 11 years, ASIC or not. [/quote] Rigol scopes have very fast WFM's per second. They are second fastest to Keysight. And it has nothing to do with what most people are referring to as "Keysights are fast". Keysights are not fast to use because of Megazoom. Megazoom only helps with WFMs/s. Rigols are almost as fast in WFMs/s but feel like molasses in comparison. Because user interaction is not done well. The fact that (for instance) 3000T is so responsive is fact that Keysight did best job optimizing U/I. User input is priority 0 thread and everything stops as soon as you touch something. Also they did best job of optimizing background running threads and it's communication with hardware. Actual waveform rendering happens in hardware and is physically injected into screen area. That made it possible to have small CPU (that doesn't have graphics accelerator) and still be fast. To be honest, all of that is also possible by the fact that 12000 USD scope has a screen with resolution that LESS than my hand watch.. Ruminate on that. It is highly optimized user experience that is fast, not Megazoom. 1000X series has 1/5th of WFMs/s of 3000T and people still find it as fast. Because user experience was tuned for that. Processing leader it is NOT. It (3000T) samples fraction of data even the cheapest scope now have, it does all measurements, filters, math on decimated 64k buffer. FFT is 64k max. Here, too, it cleverly trades off capability for speed. BUT... It is not a analytic scope. All the tradeoffs Keysight decided to do were done well, and with full understanding of it's target market and audience. It is a masterpiece of engineering: how to achieve most with as little as possible. It is actual delicate balance of how much user gets while giving as little as possible. Most users of these scopes are not bothered by low memory. It gets the job done. Most users of these scopes are not bothered by low screen resolution. It gets the job done. Most users of these scopes are not bothered by small screen resolution. It makes scope compact and easy to put on the desk. It gets the job done. etc etc. All while giving great user experience, instant response to user input. It is closest thing to CRT scope on market. In its current form it gets the job done. No need to mess with it. There is no need for new design. These scopes are Fluke 87 of scope industry.. Same rules apply. Only when it stops selling they will offer something else. It's just good business. Do I think they have at least rough draft on something new for that moment? Of course they do. They are Keysight. And also being Keysight, you bet they can whip up new product in very little time. In meantime they focus their effort on midrange/high end. Where their new corporate policy puts their priority. They don't seem to care for entry level that much anymore. |
| jjoonathan:
Gehn stole the Megazoom V because it had the number 5 in it, and now you need to travel to 5 tropical islands to get it back. |
| Navigation |
| Message Index |
| Next page |
| Previous page |