Rohde & Schwarz enters the time domain

MUNICH, GERMANY. In what might be considered the corporate equivalent of an inverse Fourier transform, the Rohde & Schwarz test-and-measurement division is entering the time-domain-analysis business with families of oscilloscopes that offer bandwidths to 2 GHz. CEO Michael Vohrer said the time-domain initiative represents an attempt of the privately held company to push into new markets while expanding market share in traditional markets. Vohrer placed the scope market at US $1 billion and added that, with a highly diversified customer base, it represents relatively low volatility compared with other segments.

Roland Steffen, head of the R&S test-and-measurement division, said the new offerings will complement the under-500-MHz offerings from the Hameg subsidiary, which R&S acquired five years ago. He said Hameg will continue to supply instruments costing roughly 4000 euro and less through distributors, while R&S will serve the 500-MHz and up, 4000-euro and up market through its direct sales force.

Initial models in the new R&S oscilloscope line offer top bandwidths of 500 MHz and 2 GHz, which, Steffen said, are the bandwidths having the largest share of market volume. He said the company’s first efforts will be to target its existing customers who need oscilloscopes in these bandwidths.

Josef Wolf, head of the spectrum and network analyzers, EMC tests, and oscilloscopes subdivision, said the scope development effort focused on high-level integration of analog, mixed-signal, and digital subsystems. A key goal, he said, was a low-noise analog front-end achieved through the use of a single-core SiGe 10-GHz A/D converter with ENOB 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.

Wolf said 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 used in conjunction with separate analog triggers, with RTO trigger jitter specified in femtoseconds, vs. picoseconds. In addition Wolf said, the digital trigger eliminates re-arm times associated with analog triggers (which can mask events of interest that occur shortly after an analog trigger). Wolf added that the RTO provides up to 20 times less blind time than competitive models to help identify intermittent problems.

RTO models are available in 2- and 4-channel models with bandwidths of 1 and 2 GHz. Sampling rate is 10 Gsamples/s. The instruments support a Windows-driven touch-screen user interface. (Dr. Markus Freidhof, head of R&D for oscilloscopes, provided a user-interface demonstration that text can’t do justice to.)

The new RTM models offer 500-MHz bandwidth and 5-Gsample/s sampling. They forgo the touch-screen interface but boot within seven seconds to help provide fast measurement results. RTM instruments start at 5000 euro; RSO instruments start at 12,000 euro.