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With the transfer rates of next-generation serial data signals going to 8 Gbps and 10 Gbps, the requirements of oscilloscopes has increased tremendously. Simply providing bandwidth is not sufficient for qualifying these high-speed links. Besides high bandwidth, these oscilloscopes must offer low jitter noise floor and the detailed jitter analysis capability. To address such needs, LeCroy Corp. has developed WaveExpert 100H, the first sampling oscilloscope capable of acquiring, measuring and processing signals that cannot be physically probed. As per the manufacturer, it addresses the analysis and compliance requirements of the long serial data patterns required by standards such as second-generation PCI Express, serial ATA, XAUI and 10 Gb Ethernet. The Wave Expert modular architecture supports up to four optical or electrical channels with bandwidths up to 100 GHz, as well as clock recovery and serial pattern generation up to 13.5 Gbps.

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To further view equalized signals as they appear inside the receiver, it offers an option called Eye Doctor, a new analysis feature. The Eye Doctor option is labeled Wave Expert 100H SDA.

The Wave Expert 100H comes standard with time domain reflectometry (TDR) analysis software, including reference plane calibration and full differential two-port S-parameter measurements. These features allow characterization of cables, connectors, backplanes and other devices. The measured S-parameters can be combined with the Eye Doctor analysis to perform stressed eye pattern analysis and measurements on equalized receivers. The integration of jitter, waveform analysis, TDR/S parameters, virtual probing, and equalizer emulation provides a complete end-to-end solution for design and verification of serial data links, making the WaveExpert 100H a complete signal integrity workstation.

Receiver inputs typically cannot be accessed with traditional probing methods. LeCroy's Virtual Probing, available with the WaveExpert 100H SDA option, enables accurate measurement of stressed eye patterns at a receiver input while the equalized receiver emulation provides a “receiver's eye” view of the signal after receiver equalization.

“The transfer rates of next-generation serial data standards will require signal compensation to provide the desired performance at the lowest possible cost,” said Michael Schnecker, product marketing manager, Signal Integrity Products. “LeCroy's WaveExpert 100H performs the type of analysis that has only been available on real-time sampling oscilloscopes.”

With a 230 fs jitter noise floor and automatic pattern locking, the high-stability coherent interleaved sampling time base in the Wave Expert 100H, however, provides capture rates that are hundreds of times faster than sampling oscilloscopes for long data patterns, said LeCroy. In addition, the Q-scale jitter analysis used on the Wave Expert 100H provides the most accurate measurements regardless of the jitter source.

Unlike conventional sampling oscilloscopes, capable of capturing only 40 K samples per second, the fast coherent time base in the Wave Expert 100H captures 2.5 Ms per second or 60 times faster. That means while traditional sampling oscilloscopes take more than an hour to capture a waveform error that occurs with a frequency of 10e-6, the same measurement can be made in less than three minutes using the Wave Expert 100H's HCIS time base.

For different applications, it offers a range of plug-in sampling modules. Optical modules support standards from Fibre channel to SONET/SDH while electrical modules with bandwidths up to 100 GHz support measurements on electrical signals for PCI Express, XAUI and SATA. The CDR-E135 clock recovery module provides a reference clock for the HCIS time base for bit rates up to 13.5 Gbps. The PPG-E135 is an electrical pulse pattern generator with differential outputs that can be used for general receiver testing with standard PRBS data patterns up to 13.5 Gbps.

The pricing for the sampling oscilloscope mainframe, which includes TDR and S-parameter software, is $21,250. The optional jitter analysis and Eye Doctor software WE-SDA costs $11,987.
LeCroy Corp.
(800) 553-2769
www.lecroy.com