Rohde & Schwarz enters the time domain
Rick Nelson, Editor-in-Chief -- EDN, July 29, 2010
The Rohde & Schwarz test-and-measurement
division is entering
the time-domain-analysis business
with families of oscilloscopes that offer
bandwidths to 2 GHz. Speaking on June
28, Michael Vohrer, then-R&S chief executive
officer, said the time-domain initiative
represents an attempt of the privately
held company to push into new markets
and expand market share in traditional
markets. Vohrer estimates that the scope
market is worth $1 billion and says that,
with a highly diversified customer base,
it represents lower volatility than that of
other segments.Roland Steffen, head of the R&S test-and-measurement division, says the new offerings will complement the under-500-MHz offerings from the Hameg subsidiary, which R&S acquired five years ago. Initial models in the new line offer top bandwidths of 500 MHz and 2 GHz, which, he adds, are the bandwidths having the largest share of market volume.
According to Josef Wolf, head of the company’s spectrum and network analyzer, EMC (electromagnetic-compatibility) test, and oscilloscope subdivision, the scope-development effort focuses on high-level integration of analog-, digital-, and mixed-signal subsystems. A key goal was a low-noise analog front end, which R&S achieves using a single-core, SiGe (silicon-germanium), 10-GHz ADC with an ENOB (effective number of bits) better than seven. A 90-nm ASIC with 15 million gates provides hardware implementation of digital-signal-processing functions, enabling the analysis of 1 million waveforms per second.
The 2-GHz top-of-the-line RTO models employ a purely digital trigger system that eliminates the alignment errors that can occur with software-compensation schemes in conjunction with separate analog triggers, specifying RTO trigger jitter in femtoseconds rather than picoseconds. The digital trigger eliminates rearm times associated with analog triggers, which can mask events of interest that occur shortly after an analog trigger. The RTO provides as much as 20 times less blind time than competitors to identify intermittent problems.
RTO models are available in two- and four-channel models with bandwidths of 1 and 2 GHz. The sampling rate is 10G samples/sec. They support a Windows-driven touchscreen user interface. The new RTM models offer 500-MHz bandwidth and 5G-sample/sec sampling. They boot within 7 seconds to help provide fast measurement results. Prices for RTM instruments start at €5000; prices for RTO instruments start at €12,000.
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