Oscilloscopes' high performance waveform display

The new Signalxplorer DL9000 series of digital oscilloscopes from Yokogawa are claimed to combine high-performance waveform display and analysis with compact and lightweight design.

The new Signalxplorer DL9000 series of digital oscilloscopes from Yokogawa are claimed to combine high-performance waveform display and analysis with the most compact and lightweight design in their class.

Featuring a maximum frequency bandwidth of 1.5GHz, maximum sampling rate of 10GS/s, and maximum memory length of 6.25 MW, the four-channel instruments feature a new enhanced waveform accumulation function that is said to allow up to 450 million digitised points to be acquired and displayed every second.

Measuring 350mm x 200mm x 178mm and weighing only 6.5kg, the DL9000 Series is the smallest, most lightweight instrument in its class in terms of display and analysis performance.

It incorporates an 8.4-inch (213mm) LCD screen.

Commented Terry Marrinan, Yokogawa's director of sales and marketing for Europe and Africa: "The DL9000 Series sets new standards in waveform acquisition and display performance, and is a major step forward in Yokogawa's evolution as a leading test and measurement player.

Never before have so many leading-edge features been made available in a compact oscilloscope and at such a competitive price." To achieve Yokogawa's objectives of compactness and high performance, the company's engineers have merged internal circuits and designed for reduced power consumption.

For the A/D conversion section, cascade-type 2.5 GS/s 8-bit A/D convertors are run in parallel and are designed for energy savings.

The instrument's signal-processing section, which generates display data from the A/D converted data and carries out processing for waveform and parameter calculations, is based on an ADSE (advanced data stream engine) implemented on a 0.13um process CMOS IC with a high level of integration allowing data memory to be incorporated on the same chip.

The signal-processing section is based on a proprietary architecture specifically designed to offer very high-speed waveform display updating, said the company.

As a result, the DL9000 Series offers what is described as a very fast dot-filling rate - a function of acquisition rate, memory and number of channels - which is not affected by the number of channels selected.

The acquisition rate is claimed to be typically 300 times faster than that of Yokogawa's 500MHz oscilloscopes, while the display accumulation rate - with 2,000 displays superimposed within 0.1 second - is 50 times faster.

The high-speed acquisition is also the key to an enhanced dot density display function, with the intensity of individual display pixels being varied depending on how often a signal illuminates each pixel.

The result is a display that emulates that of an analogue oscilloscope, added Yokogawa.

The new waveform accumulation function - which is additional to convention waveform accumulation - allows an image identical to overwritten history waveforms to be dynamically and continuously generated in parallel with waveform acquisition.

The number of waveforms that can be superimposed using this method is the same as the number of waveforms that can be handled by the history function.

For example, if the number of sample points per waveform is set to 2.5k, up to 2,000 waveforms can be superimposed.

If that range is not exceeded, any event that occurs is developed in to a bitmap.

The number of sample points overlapped on each pixel is counted, converted to colour or brightness, and used to generate an image, said the company.

Regardless of which accumulate operation is employed, since the accumulated waveform is sent as an image to the LCD for display, it is possible to acquire and display a large quantity of waveforms without experiencing limits due to the operating frequency of the LCD.

For 12.5k sample points per waveform, waveforms can be acquired and displayed continuously at a trigger rate of up to approximately 9kHz.

Even if that trigger rate is applied to four channels simultaneously, the result is the same as for only one channel.

If there are 12.5 points per waveform on four channels, that means that there are 450 M points being processed every second by the whole system.

The ADSE's signal processing performance allows for anything from a single long-memory waveform up to the generation of four 125 M superimposed sample point waveform images sixty times per second claimed Yokogawa.

The company also claimed that it is the first time that such a level of waveform display performance has been made available in a digital oscilloscope of compact size at its price level.

The DL9000's microprocessor uses a diskless (embedded) operating system for increased reliability during continuous measurement.

The XGA display has a resolution of 1024 x 768, and offers high definition, excellent contrast control and high waveform display performance, added Yokogawa.

The Signalxplorer DL9000 series consists of four instruments.

The DL9140 and DL1940L have 1GHz bandwidth and a maximum sampling rate of 2.5GS/s on all four channels (5GS/s on two channels).

The DL9140 has 2.5M of memory on each channel, while the DL9140L has 6.25M on each channel.

The DL9240 and DL9240L have 1.5GHz bandwidth and a maximum sampling rate of 5GS/s on all four channels (10GS/s on two channels).

The DL9240 has 2.5M of memory on each channel, while the DL9240L has 6.25M on each channel.

Prices for the Yokogawa Signalxplorer DL9000 Series start at 10,995 Euros - approximately 5,000 Euros less than the list price of any other 1GHz oscilloscope on the market claimed the company.

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