With its Infiniium 80000B series of oscilloscopes, Agilent has created a high-performance instrument range that it offers at real-time-bandwidth points of 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 and 13 GHz, with the additional option that the bandwidths are upgradeable. The price range is from $30,000 to $115,000—approximately the same top price as Agilent's existing 13-GHz model. The company has created, in effect, a lower entry point to its fastest family of real-time scopes: if you have an upcoming need for a 12- or 13-GHz scope but this year's equipment budget will not fund it, you can buy into the range at a lower point and upgrade later. Upgrades are, however, on a return-to-base model. At any given bandwidth specification, users can opt to limit the effective bandwidth they are employing, trading off bandwidth for noise level. The noise floor is also a feature of the 80000s—Agilent says it is the lowest available on the market. Other facilities include an updated version of Agilent's MegaZoom deep-memory management system, using 256-level brightness grading for enhanced display, and a feature called InfiniScan, a software-based method of searching for waveform anomalies in long captured records. The company says that this will locate glitches and aberrant wave-shapes that hardware-based techniques cannot find. The scopes have an XGA, touch-screen display, an upgraded Windows operating system and both front- and rear-panel USB access.

Agilent Technologies, www.agilent.com.