The Tektronix LPD646BW2500 2.5 GHz, 4 Analog Inputs, 25 GS/s Low Profile Digitizer with 125 Mpts Record Lengths a high-speed digitizer that has the functionality of a digitizer and the power of an oscilloscope, sharing a similar hardware platform as the 6 Series MSO. Low Profile users now have the choice of extreme high channel count and extreme performance in the same rack form factor.

Machine Diagnostics for Physics

Physics is constantly leading the world to exciting new scientific discoveries in both matter and energy. These experiments require digitizers and oscilloscopes with improvements in precision, accuracy, performance and density when monitoring target test points.

Common Physics Fields:

• High Energy (Particle) Physics
• Nuclear Physics
• Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics

Condensed Matter

Research fields requiring single shot events - or fast repetitive monitoring in research labs - include experiments like Photo Doppler Velocimetry (PDV), VISAR, gas guns, spectroscopy, accelerators and more. The LPD64 6-BW-2500 can perform diagnostic experiments, while also validating doppler shifts, phase alignments, beat frequencies, beam steering alignment, and amplitudes.

Performance on Every Channel

It is often easier to debug an issue by viewing one or more signals in the frequency domain. Oscilloscopes and digitizers have included math-based FFTs for decades in an attempt to address this need. However, FFTs are notoriously difficult to use as they are driven by the same acquisition system that is delivering the analog time-domain view. When users optimize acquisition settings for the analog view, they do not need a frequency-domain view; when they get the frequency-domain view they need, an analog view is no longer necessary. With math-based FFTs, it is virtually impossible to get optimized views in both domains.

LPD64 6-BW-2500's Spectrum View provides both exceptional ease-of-use and the ability to achieve optimal views in both domains simultaneously. Spectrum View features both a decimator for the time-domain and a digital down-converter for the frequency-domain behind each input. The two different acquisition paths allow users to simultaneously observe the input signal's time and frequency-domain views, with independent acquisition settings for each domain.

Waveform and IQ data can also easily be transferred from the LPD64 6-BW-2500 to a PC using a variety of programming commands and API interfaces.

Behind the Performance

The Tektronix-designed TEK049 ASIC contains 12-bit analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) that provide 16 times more resolution than traditional 8-bit ADCs. The TEK049 is paired with the TEK061 front-end amplifier with low noise, enabling the best signal fidelity possible to capture small signals with high resolutions.

A key attribute to being able to view fine signal details on small, high-speed signals is noise. The higher a measurement system's intrinsic noise, the less actual signal detail will be visible. This becomes more critical on a digitizer when the vertical settings are set to a high sensitivity (like ≤ 10 mV/div), in order to view small signals that are prevalent in high-speed bus topologies. The LPD64 6-BW-2500 has a TEK061 front-end ASIC that enables breakthrough noise performance at the highest sensitivity settings.

In addition, its High Res mode applies a hardware-based, unique Finite Impulse Response (FIR) filter, which is based on the selected sample rate. This FIR filter maintains the maximum bandwidth possible for the selected sample rate - while preventing aliasing and removing noise from the digitizer amplifiers and ADC. High Res mode always provides at least 12 bits of vertical resolution and extends all the way to 16 bits of vertical resolution at a ≤ 625 MS/s sample rate, with 200 MHz of bandwidth.

Building a Next-Generation Test Rack

Tektronix is blazing a path to provide a richer set of tools that will increase flexibility to view, download or analyze data and replace obsolete hardware (without rewriting code). If that means automating a test rack with LabVIEW, Python, or some other interface, Tektronix has an ever-expanding number of drivers and support resources available.

If the user requires an easy way to view waveforms on a remote computer, Tektronix has a software team designing new ways to control the instrument from a browser (E*Scope), store data in the cloud (TekCloud), or stream data to a PC (TekScope).

Lastly, users familiar with keyboards, mice, monitors, and KVM switches can continue to operate as they always have.

Upgrade Automated Test Equipment (ATE) Systems Quickly and Smoothly

Anyone working closely with automated test systems knows that moving to a new model or platform can be painful. Modifying an existing codebase for a new product can be prohibitively expensive and complicated. To solve this problem, the LPD64 6-BW-2500 includes a Programmatic Interface (PI) Translator. When enabled, the PI Translator acts as an intermediate layer between the test application and the digitizer. The PI Interface Translator is designed to be human-readable and easily extensible, which means that users can customize its behavior to minimize the amount of effort required to transition from obsolete instruments, to more modern platforms.

Access Data in New Ways

TekDrive is purpose-built for integration, automation, and security. Using TekDrive, users can upload, store, organize, search, download, and share any file type from any connected device. TekDrive is natively integrated into the LPD64 6-BW-2500 for seamless sharing and file recall. Analyze and explore standard files like .wfm, .isf, .tss, and .csv, directly in a browser with smooth interactive waveform viewers.

TekScope software allows users to analyze waveforms anywhere, anytime, right on a PC. A free TekScope trial is available for download on the Tektronix website. This software lets users view and analyze waveforms, perform many types of measurements, and decode the most common serial buses - all while remotely accessing the LPD64 6-BW-2500 oscilloscope.

E*Scope web based remoted control software provides an easy method of viewing and controlling the LPD64 6-BW-2500 instrument over a network connection. Simply type the instrument's IP address into a browser to display the LXI landing page, then select the Instrument Control to access the E*Scope application - no drivers necessary. It is all self-contained within the browser, where users can control their instrument. E*Scope is fast, responsive, and perfect for controlling or visualizing a single, or up to multiple instruments at once.

When synchronizing multiple instruments it is important to have the smallest amount of skew between instrument channels. This process is called deskewing an instrument and it allows for better data timing accuracy. Generally speaking, this can be broken down into two types of skew: the part that comes from uncertainty between the aux trigger to the analog channel; and the part that comes from trigger jitter. By calibrating the effects of channel delay to the aux input, the user can reduce timing inaccuracies in between instrument channels, in order to isolate jitter.

Deskewing can be done to a reference channel that is simultaneously feeding a trigger edge (preferably over 1 Vpp) into the Aux Trigger input of multiple instruments, as well as to the reference channel. When everything is adjusted, instrument-to-instrument channels can have a very tight tolerance, within a couple of sample points, and within our specification of 200 ps. Whether the user has 16 channels or 200 channels, all of the data can easily be synchronized and analyzed.

Digital Voltmeter (DVM) and Trigger Frequency Counter

The LPD64 6-BW-2500 comes with an integrated 4-digit voltmeter (DVM) and an 8-digit trigger frequency counter. Any of the analog inputs can be a source for the voltmeter, using any probes that are already attached for general oscilloscope usage. The trigger frequency counter provides a very precise readout of the frequency of the trigger event on which the user is triggering. Both the DVM and trigger frequency counter are available for free and are activated when the user registers their product.