Keysight discloses InP technology taking scopes past 100 GHz
Keysight promises real-time and equivalent-time oscilloscopes, with availability in 2017, that will offer bandwidths greater than 100 GHz with significantly better noise floors than what is currently on the market – using its in-house indium phosphide (InP) semiconductor capability.
Absolute bandwidth, Keysight adds, is not the only breakthrough in the new oscilloscope families. The real-time oscilloscopes will feature a new 10-bit ADC that allows higher vertical resolution of signals captured at ultra-high bandwidth, and more than one maximum-bandwidth input channel per oscilloscope to enable tight channel synchronisation.
“Keysight continues to innovate in the Indium Phosphide process,” said Jay Alexander, senior vice president and chief technology officer of Keysight Technologies. “…[and] expertise in microwave semiconductor technology has allowed us to deliver the next-generation Indium Phosphide process to create a breakthrough in real-time and equivalent-time oscilloscope performance, and it will enable significant advancements in other Keysight products over time as well.”
The illustration is of a board that won an award from (PCB layout software supplier) Mentor Graphics, in Mentor’s annual PCB design awards. The board has over 5000 parts, 31,000 connections and over 80 voltage rails; it was designed with Mentor’s Xpedition Enterprise toolset.
Engineers working with next-generation, high-speed interfaces, such as the upcoming IEEE P802.3bs 400G, as well as terabit coherent optical modulation, will need oscilloscopes for electrical parametric measurements. These technologies and others will play a key role in validating fifth-generation wireless (5G) designs. And these interfaces will drive the need for high-performance, real-time and equivalent-time signal analysis capabilities to 100 GHz and beyond. As data rates continue to extend beyond 56 Gb/sec NRZ and 56 GBaud multi-level signalling, engineers will need not only higher bandwidth, but also higher vertical resolution and lower noise floors to address their validation challenges, and the new chipsets have been designed with this in mind.
Six years ago, Keysight released its first oscilloscope with chipsets built in the company’s proprietary InP semiconductor process; the company says it is the only T&M player producing oscilloscopes made with InP chipsets. Investing in the next-generation InP process has allowed Keysight to scale the transistor switching frequencies beyond the 300-GHz level, enabling higher bandwidths in both the chips and the end products.
Dave Cipriani, vice president and general manager of Keysight’s oscilloscope business, adds, “Our goal is to move multiple performance parameters ahead simultaneously. The next-generation oscilloscopes deliver bandwidths starting at 80 GHz and going beyond 100 GHz. They will have a lower noise density, providing higher-resolution measurements in tightly-synchronised, multi-channel systems. Whether customers are measuring higher baud rates, higher order QAM signals or multi-channel systems, these next-generation scopes will meet their needs.”
Keysight currently offers high-performance Infiniium Z-Series oscilloscopes with bandwidths up to 63 GHz and multi-channel equivalent time oscilloscopes with bandwidths over 70 GHz.
Keysight has nominated March 2016 as “Scope Month”, highlighting breakthrough technology and the engineers who enable it. In addition to this announcement, Scope Month (March 2016) will offer oscilloscope measurement tips and content, access to measurement experts and daily oscilloscope giveaways.
Keysight; www.keysight.com and at Keysight oscilloscopes.
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