EDN's 18th Annual Innovation Awards Finalists
-- EDN, February 1, 2008
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&& PREVIOUS FINALIST | MAIN | NEXT FINALIST >> Category: Test and Measurement (General Purpose) WINNER: WaveExpert 100H sampling oscilloscope (LeCroy)  LeCroy Corp’s WaveExpert 100H is the first sampling oscilloscope that can acquire, measure, and process signals that you cannot physically probe. The instrument fully addresses the analysis and compliance requirements of the long serial-data patterns required by standards such as PCI Express 2.0, serial ATA (advanced-technology attachment), XAUI (10-Gbps attachment-unit interface) and 10-Gbps Ethernet.As systems’ symbol rates have increased, the measurement challenges have increased right along with them. With the adoption of receiver equalization, traditional jitter and noise measurements are becoming inadequate for determining interoperability. The WaveExpert 100H features LeCroy’s Eye Doctor, a DSO (digital-sampling-oscilloscope)-based instrumentation and simulation system that addresses these measurement challenges and represents a dramatic leap in interoperability- and compliance-testing capability. Eye Doctor provides the tools to undo or balance many common forms of distortion, thereby increasing SNR (signal-to-noise ratio), opening eyes, increasing rise time, reducing jitter, restoring lost bandwidth, and improving waveform fidelity. Eye Doctor consists of two elements: Virtual Probing and equalized-receiver emulation. Virtual Probing enhances the accuracy of measurements made on distorted waveforms, whereas equalized-receiver emulation allows the measurements to be made from a receiver’s-eye viewpoint. This ideal view of the signal within the receiver allows accurate total-jitter and bit-error-rate measurements that represent systems’ actual performance. The WaveExpert 100H is a complete single-instrument end-to-end approach to design and verification of serial data links because it integrates jitter, waveform analysis, TDR (time-domain reflectometry)/S (scattering)-parameters, virtual probing, and equalizer emulation. Eye Doctor complements the WaveExpert 100H by combining a DSO’s signal-acquisition power with sophisticated DSP for digital-filter synthesis and simulation, thereby allowing engineers to capture and view real-world gigahertz signals, explore equalization schemes, compare and test waveforms, and model the signal at the output of simulated interconnects and transmission systems. |
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