Test and Measurement
How to choose a 1 GHz oscilloscope
By Cliff Ortmeyer, global head of technical marketing at Farnell T
oday’s 1 GHz oscilloscopes are the workhorses of the modern electronics lab. There are a wealth of products available at this level of performance,
which can make selection challenging and confusing. With many offering the same performance and features at very similar prices, it’s important for test engineers to look beyond the datasheet to get the oscilloscope most suited to their test requirements and the specific way they work. So, we asked some of the leading experts in the test industry about the best approach to choosing a 1 GHz scope.
Covering the basics
Mike Hoffman, product manager at Keysight Technologies, pointed out: “By my last count, there were 35 discrete, 1 GHz oscilloscope models available on the market today from all the different manufacturers.” It’s a critical first step, then, for test engineers to consider some basic metrics when selecting an oscilloscope. A key consideration is the number of channels. Although most products will offer two or four analog input channels, 6-channel scopes are also available enabling more data capture capability. Many 1 GHz oscilloscopes will also offer digital inputs, which are particularly important for complex mixed-signal applications. Depending on the requirements of an application, test engineers may want to consider adding 16, 32 or 48 digital channels. The more channels, the more signals a user can compare. However, with increased channels comes increased cost, so the engineer must consider their needs against their budget. Another basic part of functionality includes memory depth. As a digital storage oscilloscope stores samples in a buffer memory, memory size determines how long it can capture a signal before the memory is full. An oscilloscope may have
44 October 2022
a high sampling rate, but if it offers only a small memory, it will only be able to use its full sampling rate on a few timebases. Generally, the deeper the memory the better, although it doesn’t make sense for users to pay for memory that isn’t required.
Application support Application support is another major consideration. Advanced oscilloscopes have
application software that makes it easier to test in certain situations. For example, radio frequency (RF) software will allow users to view a range of signals in the frequency domain to amplitude and phase versus time. Packages for signal integrity and jitter measurement may be important in communications applications, while automated power measurements of characteristics such as power loss and harmonics are important when
energy efficiency is critical. Software to debug embedded systems with mixed analog and digital components may also be a priority. With 1 GHz oscilloscopes, bandwidth is not generally an issue for most mainstream applications. However, projects requiring real-time eye diagrams or doing jitter measurements will need a much higher bandwidth than the fastest signals being measured.
Components in Electronics
www.cieonline.co.uk
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