LeCroy Establishes Clear Oscilloscope Leadership

CHESTNUT RIDGE, N.Y., Sept. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- LeCroy Corporation's new line of WaveMaster® 8 Zi-A digital oscilloscopes, Serial Data Analyzers, and Disk Drive Analyzers—the 8 Zi-A Series—now provides up to 45 GHz of bandwidth and 120 GS/s of sample rate – the world's highest bandwidth and fastest sample rate real-time oscilloscope – combined with 768 Megapoints of analysis memory. Additionally, the introduction of a model with 20 GHz bandwidth on four channels provides the highest performance and signal fidelity available on four measurement channels. On all models, acquisition capability can be doubled with the use of the Zi-8CH-SYNCH Oscilloscope Synchronization Kit, with all acquired channels displayed on a single display grid.

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The 20 GHz bandwidth on each of the four channels makes the WaveMaster 8 Zi-A Series well suited for testing emerging 40/100 GbE DWDM devices and systems. It can be part of an optical DP-QPSK test system for measuring 100+ GbE, and to measure the electrical properties of multi-lane 40/100 GbE transmissions. The WaveMaster 8 Zi-A Series can also be used in 224+ Gb/s (56+ Gbaud) DP-QPSK, 16-QAM optical transmission research.

The standard sample rate is 120 GS/s for 45 GHz bandwidth, 80 GS/s for 25 to 30 GHz bandwidths, and 40 GS/s on all 4 channels at 20 GHz bandwidth. For 4 to 20 GHz bandwidths, the standard sample rate is 40 GS/s on all four channels with an option to increase the sampling rate to 80 GS/s on two channels. All memory is available at full record lengths for analysis processing, 20 Mpts/ch is provided standard, with memory options up to 256 Mpts/ch available. In 120 and 80 GS/s mode, memory can be interleaved to 768 and 512 Mpts/ch.

The WaveMaster 8 Zi-A models utilize second generation silicon germanium (SiGe) components to ensure high performance. SiGe is the most widely adopted and deployed semiconductor fabrication process with many years of commercial deployment. Additionally, it has none of the thermal conductivity, reliability, yield, cost and other concerns that captive in-house processes must contend with. LeCroy's 30 to 45 GHz 8 Zi-A models make use of sixth generation Digital Bandwidth Interleave (DBI) to effectively and reliably extend bandwidth without the deleterious effects of bandwidth "boosting."

LeCroy has designed the 8 Zi-A Series as a single hardware platform, supporting all nine models spanning from 4 to 45 GHz of bandwidth. This means engineers can leverage their investment and stay current with emerging high-speed technologies and serial data standards by purchasing only the bandwidth needed for current designs, and upgrading to additional bandwidth as needs change. Customers who had previously purchased an 8 Zi model can upgrade to 8 Zi-A performance and bandwidth.  

Highest Performance 4-Channel Oscilloscope

The WaveMaster 820Zi-A model provides four channels at 20 GHz with exceptional performance and signal fidelity. The second generation SiGe chipset used in the 8Zi-A provides ample bandwidth out to 20 GHz without the need for the bandwidth "boosting" that is utilized on competitive products that are rated in hardware to 16 GHz and utilize digital signal processing (DSP) to excessively "boost" bandwidth. This type of bandwidth boost used by competitors carries significant signal fidelity penalties such as increased noise, increased jitter noise floor, excessive overshoot, and effective number of bits (ENOB) dropouts in the mid-bandwidth range. Conversely, the 820Zi-A model suffers from none of these phenomena and exhibits exceptional rise time, overshoot, noise, and jitter noise floor performance, including class leading total jitter noise floor of <190 fs rms.

World's Highest Bandwidth Real-Time Oscilloscope

With the launch of the WaveMaster 845Zi-A model, LeCroy again assumes bandwidth leadership in real-time oscilloscopes. The 845Zi-A uses proven, second generation SiGe track and hold and analog-to-digital (ADC) components to achieve exceptional performance. This unprecedented oscilloscope bandwidth is ideal for leading-edge research and development applications, especially in the optical market for high-speed next generation long-haul optical network development. In addition to the 45 GHz capability, the oscilloscope may also be operated in a 30 GHz / 2 channel or a 20 GHz / 4 channel mode. This gives flexibility to utilize multiple channels at 30 GHz or 20 GHz for timing validation while retaining the ability to utilize fewer channels for higher bandwidth signal fidelity measurements. The 20 GHz four channel rating of the 845Zi-A (and likewise, the 830Zi-A) has 25% more bandwidth compared to competitive offerings that reach to 30 GHz and only provide a four channel bandwidth of 16 GHz. Jitter Noise Floor at 45 GHz is an astounding 125 fs rms.

Maximum sample rate in single channel mode is 120 GS/s (45 GHz), with 80 GS/s and 40 GS/s operation in 2 channel (30 GHz) and 4 channel (20 GHz) modes respectively.  Likewise, maximum analysis memory available is 768, 512, or 256 Megapoints/channel in 45, 30, and 20 GHz modes, respectively.

LabMaster: New Family of Innovative, High-speed, Multi-channel Oscilloscope Modules

In addition to today's release of the WaveMaster 8 Zi-A oscilloscopes, LeCroy announces LabMaster, a new family of high-speed, multi-channel oscilloscope modules. LabMaster provides industry-leading capabilities of up to 5 synchronized channels with 45 GHz of bandwidth, up to 10 synchronized channels with 30 GHz of bandwidth, and up to 20 synchronized channels of up to 20 GHz of bandwidth. This new offering is aimed at designers of emerging high-speed multi-lane data communications systems.

Second Generation Enhancements Improve Test Capability

WaveMaster 8 Zi is known for fast analysis throughput, and WaveMaster 8 Zi-A significantly advances LeCroy's analysis capabilities with additional processing power that further augments the X-Stream II Streaming Architecture. The Intel®Core™2 Quad processor rated at 3 GHz (with an effective 4 x 3 GHz = 12 GHz processing speed), 8 GB of RAM, and Windows 7 64-bit OS is standard. X-Stream II technology enables high throughput of data—even when the oscilloscope is analyzing 768 Mpt waveforms, by using variable waveform segment lengths to improve CPU cache memory efficiency resulting in 10 to 20 times faster processing compared to other oscilloscopes. The new processor is 20% faster than before, and is fully utilized by the X-Stream II architecture. Fittingly, standard memory on all 8 Zi-A oscilloscope models has been increased from 10 Mpt/Ch to 20 Mpt/Ch, and from 20 Mpt/Ch to 32 Mpt/Ch on the SDA and DDA models. The highest bandwidth SDA 845Zi-A model is standard with 96 Mpt/Ch of memory at 45 GHz.

WaveMaster 8 Zi-A deploys second generation silicon germanium (SiGe) chipsets to provide improved performance. Aside from increased bandwidth (20 GHz on four channels, mentioned earlier), the new  second generation chips provide improved signal to noise performance of approximately 25% and establish a new performance baseline, particularly in the 820Zi-A (4 channel at  20 GHz) model.

Lastly, two distinguishing features of LeCroy oscilloscopes, the Jitter Timing and Analysis (JTA2) toolkit and our XDEV Advanced Developer's Toolkit are now standard in the 8 Zi-A models. The JTA2 toolkit contains several powerful tools, such as Track, that provides a graphical plot of a measurement parameter vs. time, and Histogram, that provides a graphical statistical view of measurement statistics. Track is especially helpful to understand measurement or jitter parameter variations over time so they may be compared with other time-correlated signals for debug of complex problems. Track can be used to the full record length of the oscilloscope, allowing millions of measurements to be measured and graphed over very long periods of time, which enables debug of very low frequency problems. This capability to measure and process full record lengths is unique to LeCroy. The XDEV Advanced Developer's Toolkit allows unsurpassed customized integration by permitting an engineer to create and run custom math and measurement algorithms written in MATLAB, C/C++, Excel, Visual Basic Script (VBS) or JAVA script to be inserted into the oscilloscope processing stream with a result returned on the oscilloscope display and available for further analysis and processing. Furthermore, the custom algorithm may also contain control commands for the oscilloscope or other software packages running on the oscilloscope, providing unsurpassed flexibility for complete test system integration.

Serial Data Analyzers with Superior Serial Data Analysis

For serial data applications, nine new Serial Data Analyzer (SDA) models provide the same high bandwidth range (from 4 to 45 GHz), sample rate, and analysis memory capability (with 32 Mpts/ch standard), and are combined with LeCroy's powerful SDA II Serial Data Analysis tools and standard serial trigger to provide unmatched capability for implementing and debugging emerging, high-speed serial data standards, such as PCIe 3.0 and USB 3.0.

LeCroy's advanced SDA II Serial Data Analysis software provides superior ability to analyze and debug jitter problems utilizing unique and more precise measurement and analysis tools for both eye diagram and jitter decomposition. Additionally, eye diagram analysis is typically performed 100 times faster than competitive tools -- nearly 1 million unit intervals of PCI Express can be captured, analyzed, and displayed in 3 seconds.

At the compliance stage, automated QualiPHY™ packages are available for a variety of established standards, such as USB3, PCIe, SAS, SATA, DDR, HDMI, and DisplayPort. Many of these packages are available in fully-automated configurations using LeCroy's PeRT(3) Protocol Enabled Receiver Transmitter Tolerance Tester, a unique instrument that interfaces with an 8 Zi-A and communicates with the device under test (DUT) at the protocol layer to stimulate the DUT to enter the correct mode for compliance testing. The SDA 8 Zi-A and PeRT(3) can then be used together to speed transmitter compliance test completion and provide a fuller characterization of the DUT's transmitted signal.

Lastly, oscilloscopes with bandwidths up to 45 GHz are used to test the fastest emerging technologies in the most difficult measurement environments. At these speeds, engineers face signal integrity problems that were formerly limited to the microwave frequency domain. LeCroy's Eye Doctor II™ signal integrity tool kit provides capability for cable and test fixture de-embedding, modeling of pre-emphasis and de-emphasis, serial data channel emulation, and serial data receiver equalization. It is now possible, within the scope environment and on full record lengths, to compensate for or emulate signal path effects and serial data receiver equalization so as to precisely measure waveforms with the highest signal fidelity at any place in the test circuit under any test condition.

Disk Drive Analyzers

Based on the WaveMaster 8 Zi-A Series models, the DDA 8 Zi-A Series Disk Drive Analyzers are available in 20 and 30 GHz models. Dedicated disk drive measurements, trigger and zooming for failure analysis, and serial data measurement capability with a Disk Drive Analyzer user interface are also standard to address high capacity disk drive designs. Operate in either DDA or SDA mode to analyze the serial data links or the physical media behavior on a hard drive. All DDAs also include all capability included in SDAs (with the exception of the 3.125 Gb/s serial trigger).

Probes

LeCroy provides a range of high bandwidth probes and differential amplifiers up to 25 GHz of bandwidth. The WaveLink 13-25 GHz Differential Probes are available in 13, 16, 20, and 25 GHz models with browser positioner tip and solder-in lead, and are distinguished by the highest bandwidth solder-in lead (25 GHz), very low noise, and very high mid-band impedance (which results in 50% or more reduction in loading on the customer's test circuit).  

Further Information

Engineers and technicians who would like to know more can contact LeCroy at 1-800-5LeCroy (1-800-553-2769) or visit the LeCroy web site (www.lecroy.com).

Delivery on 4 to 30 GHz Wavemaster 8 Zi-A, SDA 8 Zi-A, and DDA 8 Zi-A Models is 4-6 weeks ARO

Delivery on 45 GHz WaveMaster 8 Zi-A, and SDA 8 Zi-A Models is 20 weeks ARO

About LeCroy

LeCroy Corporation is a worldwide leader in serial data test solutions, creating advanced instruments that drive product innovation by quickly measuring, analyzing, and verifying complex electronic signals. The Company offers high-performance oscilloscopes, serial data analyzers, and global communications protocol test solutions used by design engineers in the computer and semiconductor, data storage device, automotive and industrial, and military and aerospace markets. LeCroy's 45-year heritage of technical innovation is the foundation for its recognized leadership in "WaveShape Analysis"—capturing, viewing, and measuring the high-speed signals that drive today's information and communications technologies. LeCroy is headquartered in Chestnut Ridge, New York. Company information is available at http://www.lecroy.com.

© 2010 by LeCroy Corporation. All rights reserved. Specifications are subject to change without notice.

SOURCE LeCroy Corporation