
A novel chipset and architecture for portable oscilloscopes
Three chips compose the Phoenix chipset (each named after stars in the Phoenix Constellation).
The Analog Front-End Chip (named Beta Phoenicis) will allow for front end bandwidth as high as 4GHz, and integrates all functionality required by a digital oscilloscope’s analog modules, including a 1MΩ channel input attenuator for realizing fast and really “quiet” sound switch stalls. Due to the chip using a unique circuit design. The chip needs only to add a few external components to form an oscilloscope’s analog front-end channels.
A signal processing chip (named Ankaa) supports 10GSa/s data acquisition capability and is complemented with the probe amplifier chip (named Gamma Phoenicis) which will support differential probes up to 6GHz.
All three ASICs were developed in-house, entirely based on Rigol’s IP.
The company expects its Phoenix chipset and UltraVision II architecture to enable instruments with significantly faster waveform capture rates, new filtering and triggering capabilities, and unprecedented memory depths and search capabilities. Rigol has built a prototype scope based on Phoenix and Ultravision II, boasting a 4GHz bandwidth, 20GSa/s real-time sample rate and 1 billion point memory depth.
Rigol Technologies – www.rigol.eu