Choosing a high-bandwidth oscilloscope

摘要

Oscilloscopes in the 20 to 100-GHz bandwidth range, while expensive, are very useful tools in the design, debug, and characterization of high-frequency electrical and optical devices. Obviously, designers working on 10-Gbit Ethernet, OC-192, OC-768, and a variety of other applications need such a test instrument now. But another large class of engineers who are beginning to work on lower-frequency technologies such as PCI-Express Generation 2 (5 Gbits), SATA Generation 3 (6 Gbits), and XAUI x2 (6.25 Gbits), should also consider high-frequency scopes. While they may be satisfied currently with an 11-GHz real-time oscilloscope, they will likely require an oscilloscope with at least 18 GHz of bandwidth if the next generation of these standards moves to 10 Gbits, as is highly likely.