Tektronix TDS784D

Digital Phosphor Oscilloscopes deliver a level of insight that makes dealing with complex signals elementary.

DPOs capture, store, display and analyze, in real time, three dimensions of signal information: amplitude, time and distribution of amplitude over time. The benefit of this third dimension of information is an interpretation of the signal dynamics, including instantaneous changes and the frequency of occurrence displayed in the form of quantitative intensity information.

The resulting information-rich display enables the user's eye to integrate the subtle patterns and variations of actual signal behavior.

Easy to Learn and Easy to Use

Extensive user interface design has made the TDS784D truly intuitive to operate. Its familiar front panel layout offers dedicated vertical, horizontal and trigger controls. A graphical user interface with over 200 icons helps facilitate understanding and use of the advanced features. A color monitor helps rapidly distinguish between multiple waveforms and measurements. Online help provides a convenient built-in reference manual.

High Fidelity Signal Acquisition

The high waveform capture rate of the TDS784D DPO, together with its high bandwidth and sample rate, delivers instantaneous signal feedback to show the true signals that other scopes may be missing. The DPO acquisition acquires over 1,000 times more data than traditional DSOs, allowing the capture of complex signals, reducing debugging times from hours to seconds.

Channels can be transparently combined to achieve higher sample rates and longer record lengths. The record length can be optionally increased to 8 M points, providing a high-resolution representation of the signal over a long period of time.

The TDS784D also provides wide dynamic range, flat response, fast overdrive recovery, calibrated DC offset, 1 mV/div sensitivity, 1 ns peak detect and internal calibration.

Powerful and Flexible Triggering

In addition to basic triggering such as edge and pulse-width, this digital phosphor oscilloscope has several trigger modes tailored for specific design and debug applications. Logic and pulse triggers, including setup/hold, glitch, slew rate and timeout triggers, capture hard-to-catch digital design problems. The optional video trigger provides line and field selection for NTSC, PAL and HDTV standards. The optional communications trigger capability addresses needs to acquire a wide variety of AMI, CMI, NRZ and Ethernet communication signals.

Color-Grading

Color-grading displays historical information that has been acquired over time. This is especially powerful when used in DPO operation, where the colors show relatively how often random events occur.

Automatic Measurements

Automatic measurements eliminate the need for manually measuring the waveform against the graticule or with cursors. Measurement gating (gating not available for DPO operation) allows the user to select a specific part of the live waveform for measurement. Measurement statistics (min, max, mean and standard deviation) give additional information about the variations in the measurements over time (for example, worst case excursions), increasing the confidence in the quality of the measurements.

Waveform Histograms

Waveform histograms allow the examination of the statistical nature of the signal. Horizontal histograms, which are useful for evaluating signal jitter, sample the waveform within a specified region, sort the values into time bins and plot the accumulated bin values versus time. Vertical histograms, which are useful for evaluating signal noise, sample the waveform within a specified region, sort the values into amplitude bins and plot the accumulated bin values versus amplitude.