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60 GHz real-time bandwidth oscilloscopes

LeCroy’s latest digital scope series, Labmaster 10 Zi, now offers a peak real-time bandwidth of as much as 60 GHz, with 160 Gsample/sec sampling. The offering is based on a chipset that has a “native” capability of 36 GHz bandwidth at 80 Gsample/ sec; as in earlier products, LeCroy employs its Digital Bandwidth Interleaving (DBI) to combine two channels to yield a single channel with (nearly) double the bandwidth. DBI splits the incoming signal into two bands, in this case DC to 30 GHz and 30 to 60 GHz; it acquires the lower pass-band with one scope channel: the upper band is down-converted by a local oscillator and mixer, also to DC – 30 GHz, and acquired with a second channel. The data sets from both channels are recombined by software running on the instrument’s CPU, to produce a display representing the whole DC – 60 GHz signal bandwidth. To house this concept, LeCroy has adopted a new physical architecture. Display, control and processing are located in a master control module. To this you add acquisition modules; a single acquisition module has four channels, and you can have as many as five such modules that are all synchronised under the company’s ChannelSync scheme (also a function of the master control unit). Acquisition modules come as 4-channel, 36-GHz bandwidth units, without the interleaving option: or, you can order them with DBI and use them as either 4-channel or 2-channel, 60-GHz. Additional acquisition modules may be added as upgrades, with a trip back to LeCroy for an extensive calibration cycle. Performance claims include 30-GHz trigger bandwidth, 100 fsec (femto-second) rms jitter noise floor, 5.5 psec rise time (in 2 channel/60- GHz mode) and 14.1-GHz serial triggering. Peak performance of the system is therefore 20 channels at 36 GHz, or 10 at 60 GHz; possible users of such a configuration might include highenergy physics, and other applications lie in 28-Gbit/ sec SERDES development, optical coherent modulation communications, and multilane serial data work at 40 to 100 Gbit/sec. Unsurprisingly, this level of performance comes at an equally impressive price level; four channels (one acquisition module and a display unit) with 36-GHz capability only will cost $283,150; upgrade the acquisition module to include the DBI facility for 2 channels of 60-GHz, and the figure rises to $411,900.

—by Graham Prophet

LeCroy, www.lecroy.com