VENDORS TARGETOSCILLOSCOPESWEET SPOT30 EDN | SEPTEMBER 9, 2010
WHEN CHOOSING OSCILLOSCOPES IN <strong>THE</strong> 1- TO 4-GHz RANGE,<strong>ENGINEER</strong>S HAVE AN EXPANDING VARIETY <strong>OF</strong> PRICE,PERFORMANCE, AND USABILITY OPTIONS AS <strong>THE</strong> MARKETACQUIRES A NEW COMPETITOR.BY RICK NELSON • EDITOR-IN-CHIEFOscilloscopes having record-setting bandwidthsgarner trade-press attention as themajor competitors leapfrog past each other(Reference 1), but instruments havingmaximum bandwidths of 1 to 4 GHz canserve many demanding applications. Vendorsoffering scopes with bandwidths inthis range are also offering a variety of featurecombinations, including triggering,waveform-capture capability, data-analysis capability, probing options,and user-interface functions, that help prospective customersfind the price and performance levels they need for today’sapplications while providing head room for tomorrow’s needs.The market for 1- and 2-GHz oscilloscopesis so attractive that a newcompetitor, the Rohde & Schwarz testand-measurementdivision, introducedmodels in that range in June. At a pressconference announcing the instruments,Michael Vohrer, who was thenchief executive officer and has sinceretired, said that the time-domain initiativerepresents an attempt of the privatelyheld company to push into newmarkets and expand market share inits traditional markets for frequencydomain-analysisequipment. Vohrerplaced the scope market at $1 billionand added that, with a highly diversifiedcustomer base, it represents lowervolatility than do other segments.MARKET-SHARE NICHERoland Steffen, head of the R&Stest-and-measurement division, saysthat initial models in the new R&SRTO-oscilloscope line offer top bandwidthsof 1 and 2 GHz. The companyis not ignoring lower bandwidths, however,and introduced complementaryRTM models with 500-MHz bandwidths.The RTO and RTM modelscombine to serve the 500-MHz to2-GHz bandwidth range that is enjoyingthe largest share of market volume.Prathima Bommakanti, senior researchanalyst for test and measurementat Frost & Sullivan, concurs withthe perceived importance of that marketniche. “Big giants, including Tektronixand Agilent, view the 500-MHzto 2-GHz range as a ‘definite-demand’market,” she says, referring to the bandwidthranges that the new R&S scopesserve. Bommakanti’s research indicatesthat there is constant demand for 500-MHz to 2-GHz scopes selling for $8000to $20,000.The new R&S instruments includeRTO models in two- and four-channelversions with sampling rates of 10Gsamples/sec (Figure 1). The instrumentssupport a Windows-driven touchscreenuser interface. The 500-MHz RTM modelsoffer 5G-sample/sec sampling andforgo the touchscreen interface but bootwithin 7 seconds to help provide fastmeasurement results. Prices for RTM instrumentsstart at €5000, and prices forRTO instruments start at €12,000.The new oscilloscopes don’t representRohde & Schwarz’s first corporateexcursion into the time domain. Fiveyears ago, the company acquired lowendscope-maker Hameg. Hameg willcontinue to supply instruments costingroughly €4000 and less through distributors,and the Rohde & Schwarz testand-measurementdivision will servethe market for scopes operating at 500MHz and more and selling for €4000 ormore through its direct sales force.Josef Wolf, head of the spectrum andnetwork analyzers, EMC (electromagnetic-compatibility)tests, and oscilloscopessubdivision at R&S, commentedduring the June press conference on thedevelopment effort that went into thenew scopes. That effort focused on thehigh-level integration of analog, mixedsignal,and digital subsystems. A keygoal was a low-noise analog front end,which the company achieved throughthe use of a single-core SiGe (silicongermanium),10-GHz ADC with anENOB (effective number of bits) betterthan seven. A 90-nm ASIC with 15million gates provides hardware implementationof digital-signal-processingfunctions, enabling the analysis of 1million waveforms/sec.The 2-GHz top-of-the-line RTOmodels employ a purely digital triggersystem that eliminates the alignmenterrors that can occur with softwarecompensationschemes with separateanalog triggers. The company specifiesthe RTO models’ trigger jitter in femtosecondsrather than picoseconds. Inaddition, the digital trigger eliminatesrearm times associated with analog triggers,which can mask events of interestthat occur shortly after an analog trigger.The RTO provides as much as 20times less blind time than competitivemodels to help identify intermittentproblems, according to Wolf.The market will decide how muchshare the new R&S scopes will gainwith their price, performance, and features,and Bommakanti at Frost saysthat a clearer picture will emerge inSEPTEMBER 9, 2010 | EDN 31
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