Get the Big Waveform Picture

Martin Rowe, Senior Technical Editor -- Test & Measurement World, 1/4/2006 12:42:00 PM

With the DPO7000 series, Tektronix brings a large scope screen to a midrange series of scopes. As the table shows, the top end of this series has bandwidth, sample rates, and memory that were available only in high-end scopes just a few years ago.

The first thing you notice about the DPO7000 series is its large 12.1-in. touch-screen display, which lets you see waveforms on all four channels from across the room. The scopes can move 250,000 waveforms/s to that screen, which means it updates the display fast enough to let you see most signal anomalies. The deep memory lets you capture long signal records and the scopes run at full sample rate. They don't slow down as you increase the time-per-division settings. In digital phosphor (DPO) mode—called "fast acquisition" mode—the scopes store 1000 samples and display them in near real-time. Gradient intensity and color intensity lets you see the frequency that a waveform lights a screen pixel.

Designed primarily for debugging of embedded systems, the DPO7000 series features an A/B trigger system that lets you build qualified triggers based on digital bit patterns as well as traditional timing and level conditions. That is, you can trigger an acquisition based on any two conditions that the scope can handle. The "B" trigger level is as complete as the "A" level. The scopes can also trigger based on bit patterns of common low-speed serial buses such as I2C, RS-232, and the automotive CAN and LIN buses. The DPO7000 can decode packets on the CAN and LIN buses.

Software applications in the DPO7000 scopes include mask testing for USB and Ethernet compliance and power analysis for testing of switching power supplies. Power measurements include ripple, noise, and power-factor correction. For power analysis, Tektronix has introduced the TCP0030, a current probe that can measure up to 30 A without an external amplifier.

The DPO7000 series come with five USB ports (one on the front), an IEEE 488 port, and a CD/RW drive so you can store data on a CD-ROM. They also include MyScope, which lets you customize the screen to provide quick access to the functions you use most.

Tektronix, www.tektronix.com.