EEVblog #342 - Agilent 90000 Oscilloscope Teardown - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 28, 2012, 01:16:39 pm
content: !Private videoDave.

author: JoannaK
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2012, 01:43:49 pm
content: Nice.. Wonder though what were those massive chips next to Virtex4 ..Pitty about the wondows+touch screen, but can't have it all.. not even with that high price.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2012, 01:53:05 pm
content: Looks like a standard mATX layout. I get the feeling that the two SATA cables on the main board are not being used as SATA. Just a convenient connector and cable. Could easily be taking a few PCI-E lanes out, actually.Other than that, I just see a PCI card for the GPIB, an unpopulated PCI-E x4 slot, a pretty ordinary header being used for something unexciting, some USB 2.0 headers.. PWM fan control. Power seems to be standard ATX, but there's an extra connector there.. Perhaps standby power or a ready signal.It's definitely a custom board but nothing particularly special.

author: oPossum
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2012, 02:54:27 pm
content: The blue cable is 2 USB, not SATA.

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2012, 02:56:55 pm
content: The unpopulated PCI-E x4 is for the high speed offload upgradeI see the massive number of fans even so4 fans on the side1 cooler master fan Okay, so it's a LGA775 processor if the processor is recent it should be the Pentium Dual Core E6700/E5700/E54001 smaller fan1 centrifugal fan/blower/squirrel fan3 heatsinks on the mATX itself1 for the CPU1 for the Northbridge1 for the southbridge8 heatsinks on the power board10 heatsinks on the front end board ... What's the power consumption like dave? 500W?

author: Short Circuit
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2012, 03:24:07 pm
content: Customized version of the Adlink M321, the two SATA's don't exist on the standard board.http://www.adlinktech.com/PD/web/PD_detail.php?cKind=FN&pid=802&seq=&id=&sid=

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2012, 04:15:58 pm
content: Quote from: oPossum on August 28, 2012, 02:54:27 pmNo it's not. The USB cables are grey.Quote from: Short Circuit on August 28, 2012, 03:24:07 pmOr the M321 is a marketed version of the board they were contracted to build by Agilent.

author: Eliminateur
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2012, 04:26:23 pm
content: how does the "analog/digital" infiniium part interfaces with the PC portion?, that's a a good mystery...Could that blue "SATA" be used as a pcie 1x cable?, it's entirely possible as it's two differential pairs and the signalrate is well withing spec for a SATA 2 or SATA 3 cable...Where's the SATA storage?, they implemented some SSD on that backplane?, wouldn't it have been far easier to put a DOM SATA module with power?Also, how is the LCD being conected to the motherboard? that standout with the twisted pair cables could easily be a LVDS header for the LCD and touch screen....

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2012, 04:28:54 pm
content: Quote from: Eliminateur on August 28, 2012, 04:26:23 pmI'm pretty confident that both the 'SATA' cables running to the main board are carrying PCI-E.QuoteThere's a perfectly ordinary HDD connected via SATA. It's next to the power inlet.QuoteLVDS via the header between the PCI and PCI-E slots. The touchscreen will almost certainly be USB.

author: Eliminateur
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2012, 04:37:19 pm
content: ah i haven't seen the entire video yet so i didn't see the SATA HDD....hmm if those two "funky sata" carry PCIe, then it's 2 lanes(maybe not more than pcie 1.0)..... entirely possibleedit: CCFL backlight on a 140K grand equipment?, that's scroungy...., they should've gone with retina-like ultrahigh dpi display with full white led backlight

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2012, 04:40:40 pm
content: Quote from: Eliminateur on August 28, 2012, 04:37:19 pmThe cables should be entirely capable of supporting PCI-E 2.0. There's no sign of any additional controllers on the board, so I don't see that it could be SAS, and SATA sounds like an obscenely, brain-damagingly stupid way to interface an oscilloscope with a control PC. Even SAS would be dumb (although saner than SATA).I really think it's just a case of convenient, suitable cables and connectors.

author: firewalker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2012, 06:04:05 pm
content: With this massive fans I was expecting a fair amount of dust inside. Dave, did you had it cleaned?Alexander.

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2012, 06:42:26 pm
content: Quote from: Eliminateur on August 28, 2012, 04:37:19 pmGo back and edit : This was designed when Windows Vista, go figurePlus, Agilent isn't going to use any of the Retina-like crap. Requires more graphic muscle to drive that very high refresh rate screen( Just an info, "retina" is actually worser quality than a TFT display, if they dipped the resolutions lower you see what i mean )Quote from: firewalker on August 28, 2012, 06:04:05 pmI saw some dust! On the heatsinks where the front-end is.Quote from: Monkeh on August 28, 2012, 04:40:40 pmSATA 3 is decently quick but the best method is still SATA 3 because PCI-E 2.0 takes 12 lanes to match SATA 3And checking the ICH10 southbridge it reveals that it only has 4 configurable lanes of PCI-E v1.1and that the Q45 northbridge only has PCI-E v1.1 16 lanes that cannot be configuredBut there's 6 sata 2 ports so i doubt that is PCI-E

author: Eliminateur
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2012, 06:52:12 pm
content: a high dpi display would be very nice to prevent aliasing due to crappy low res DPI onscreen and give a more old-style analog display ultimate quality.and if they need graphic powe then that motherboard is the wrong one, intel 3x/4x chipset have the crappiest GPUs known to man.i wonder why they haven't blocked any of the normal ports on the back, for example, what happens if you plug a standard vga monitor?, or a mouse/keyboard?.either they're there to be used or it's an oversightdidn't realize this unit was so old, i tought it was state of the art

author: Short Circuit
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2012, 06:57:17 pm
content: Quote from: Eliminateur on August 28, 2012, 04:37:19 pmCutting edge consumer class hardware are incompatible with this kind of T&M equipment or industrial stuff in general.Availability issues when Apple or Samsung boosts a new product, and lifecycle of the part is almost less than the development time of the end product.When you design a >$100K scope, you prefer to use components that will be available for a reasonable (and guaranteed) amount of time.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2012, 07:00:34 pm
content: Quote from: T4P on August 28, 2012, 06:42:26 pmYou want to write some stupid, hacky, bodgeup driver to use a SATA bus for this?Please ponder what SATA is and ask yourself just how much crack you're doing to even consider using it for this application. Especially stuffed on top of the Windows driver stack.

author: Eliminateur
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2012, 07:09:04 pm
content: Quote from: T4P on August 28, 2012, 06:42:26 pmwhaaaa??first of all, the 16 lanes in the nortbridge are configurable and usable as you want and wish(and i've done it personally), you can plug whatever you want in whatever width you want in those lanes, so it's highly unlikely they used the BW-starved ICH lanes when you hve a low-latency northbridge host.Also, 12 lanes of PCIE 2.0 to match sata3, are you on crack?, a SINGLE lane of PCIE 2.0 is 90% of SATA3.for refresher, per-lane:PCIE 1.0: 250MBPSPCIe 2.0: 500MBPSPCIe 3.0: 1GBPSso for FULL SATA 3 you need only TWO lanes of PCIe 2.0

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2012, 07:18:04 pm
content: Quote from: Eliminateur on August 28, 2012, 07:09:04 pmT4P smokes some strong stuff.And he needs to stop changing his name!

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2012, 08:09:05 pm
content: Quote from: Eliminateur on August 28, 2012, 07:09:04 pmHELLO. SATA 3 is 6GBPS.I know the PCI-E x4 is from the southbridge that means the PCI-E x16 is used for the GPU itself and it can only be used if the GPU is disabledbut you can't have more then one device on the x16 and that's the Q45's limit unlike the southbridge's x4 which can be reconfigured for 4x1 but that's not the case since physically the x4 is there for an upgrade for a high-speed offloading module from Agilentwhich definitely points to a SATA 2

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2012, 08:26:51 pm
content: Quote from: T4P on August 28, 2012, 08:09:05 pm6Gbps. Not 6GBps.You read the ICH10 datasheet very, very wrong. It has SIX lanes, configurable as 6 x1 or 1 x4 + 2 x1.There is no way in hell they're using SATA for this. They'd have to be utterly insane to do so. Please think before opening your mouth.

author: Eliminateur
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2012, 08:42:03 pm
content: Quote from: T4P on August 28, 2012, 08:09:05 pmAs monkeh pointed, you made an order of magnitude error in your units for SATA, SATA3 is 600MBPS (that is, MEGABYTES)Also, you're wrong on the limit, the pcie lanes from the root complex have NOITHING to do with the GPU, the internal GPU is disabled ONLY if you attach another GPU to the system(that is ANY GPU IN ANY BUS, if you put a pci vga, it will disable itself) and that's a limitation of the GPU.the lanes are normal pcie lanes which can be used REGARDLESS of the internal GPU.And as i've said before: i've tested that myselfi.e.: grab any normal PC with integrated graphics, plug a pciex1 device(usb adapter, soundcard, sata controller) into the pciex16 slot and MAGIC, it works!

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2012, 08:53:52 pm
content: The x16 is not spread out in this case but you still don't get what i meanThe x16 is not reconfigurable, of course electrically it works but you are like wasting 15 lanes because that isn't configurableUnlike the x4 on the ICH10 that can be randomly shuffled between 4x1 and 1x4600MBPS = 8GT/sAlright! I stand corrected.It still takes 2 lanes and that is definitely from the SATAHow else do you think what sort of magic Agilent did to make the x4 slot from the southbridgeworktogether with another 4 lanes?There's only 4 lanes from the ICH10

author: Short Circuit
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2012, 08:54:20 pm
content: And PCI-express it is; 'therory of operation', servicemanual page 175/176;Quote

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2012, 08:57:39 pm
content: Quote from: T4P on August 28, 2012, 08:53:52 pmPlease stop arguing numbers you don't understand. Real PCI-E 2.0 throughput is 500MB/s per pair.The ICH10, once again, hassixlanes, not four.And, I quote from the 4 series datasheet:QuoteWhich, in plain English, means you can use the x16 slot without onboard graphics, or the first lane with onboard graphics.And, as Short Circuit has just kindly dug out of the service manual, it is indeed using a PCI-E bus from the motherboard to the FPGA on the scope side. Thank you, you've been remarkably learning-resistant, good night.

author: Short Circuit
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2012, 09:02:30 pm
content: Another nice image from the SM:

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2012, 09:05:15 pm
content: Quote from: Short Circuit on August 28, 2012, 09:02:30 pmWell would you look at that, it works exactly the way I thought it did.

author: Eliminateur
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2012, 09:06:21 pm
content: so the trigger FPGA might be that naked virtex4, what kind of MONSTER FPGA could be the main?, a Stratix V or IV?then again the V might be too new for this design(it's 28nm and they're using a s775 motherboard from the 45nm era...)i wonder how they arranged the pcie lanes considering there's only a x1 lane on the northbridge.... and you can't combine it with the other root complex on the southbridge(which has it's lanes used by the pcie x4 slot).UNLESS that x1 limitation doesn't applies "per se" and they used it fully from the NB...

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 28, 2012, 09:10:49 pm
content: Quote from: Eliminateur on August 28, 2012, 09:06:21 pmThey're only using one lane. It could be one of the SB lanes (it has SIX, not FOUR!), but if I were them I'd be using the NB PCI-E 2.0 lane. They'll need a clock signal as well, which runs them down to three pairs. That's one lane and change. They may actually be using the extra pair for presence signals.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 28, 2012, 11:39:33 pm
content: Quote from: firewalker on August 28, 2012, 06:04:05 pmNo cleaning.Dave.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 28, 2012, 11:53:08 pm
content: Nice find in the service manual!I wonder what "Hedwig" is on the acquisition board? An internal code name for a custom chip?Dave.

author: Eliminateur
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 29, 2012, 01:25:17 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on August 28, 2012, 11:53:08 pmAs it stands in the schematic, looks like it might be the mem controller, some serious Harry Potter(HP, he-he-he) fans thereMonkeh, hmm letsee, we have 4 wires down each SATA cable and a x1 link needs... 2 pairs for data, one pair for clock, yup, there it is, the two cables i had forgotten completely about clock pair.there's not enough pairs left for anything else(highly doubt the're running the i2c pair, probably ground for spacing)

author: Short Circuit
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 29, 2012, 01:48:35 am
content: Quote from: Eliminateur on August 29, 2012, 01:25:17 amActually, what about SMBus (slowish I2C) to access all those fan controllers on the backplane board,and a bunch of voltage and temperature monitors probably?Of course can be done from the PCI express as well, but having some monitoring fairly independentfrom the really expensive bits&pieces sounds like a good idea...

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 29, 2012, 01:50:42 am
content: Quote from: Eliminateur on August 29, 2012, 01:25:17 amThey may be using the remaining pair for card presence. I'm not familiar enough with PCI-E to know if they can get away without it.As Short Circuit just suggested, the block diagram shows fan control. It could be on that spare pair, actually. There aren't any other connectors going that I recall.

author: DarkPrince
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 29, 2012, 02:03:50 am
content: Thanks Dave for the wonderful view of the insides. Very nice!Ironically yesterday there was a showcase from Agilent at my work place... guess what was there! Two wonderful Infiniium 9000 series scopes. One lower range (3 Gsps? and one over 30Gsps). Awesome to see them in person. Of course they were demonstrating the eye diagram when I arrived.

author: amspire
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 29, 2012, 02:36:54 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on August 28, 2012, 11:53:08 pmIt looks like Agilent have started giving names to modules, so that the memory controller is called Hedwig and the timebase IC is Wahoo, and the preamplifier is Oak.The names could come from locations near the Agilent factory. If they are near Atlanta, then the Wahoo valley has an Oak harbour, and nearby there is a town of Hedwig.I have no idea where the Agilent 90,000 design team are actually located but Agilent do seem to offer jobs in Atlanta.Richard.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 29, 2012, 02:48:42 am
content: The build quality looks great as expected, but the failure rate is unexpectedly high from what I've seen at work. Not even the HP computers in the lab have that sort of failure rate.

author: amspire
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 29, 2012, 02:53:47 am
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on August 29, 2012, 02:48:42 amYou would be very brave to buy a scope like this without a service contract. This is not a mass produced item, so there will definitely be bugs and design errors.

author: Eliminateur
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 29, 2012, 03:24:43 am
content: Quote from: Short Circuit on August 29, 2012, 01:48:35 amhmmm IIRC in the video, i didn't see a tach wire on those Delta fans.But in the block diagram and schematic i don't see anything that indicates smbus conection, that dotted line from the fans to b4 intrigues me, it could be the fan tachos (or at least the upper smaller fan) connected to the LPC controller on the motherboard.I wonder which cpu are they using, maybe a C2Q something along the lines of a E6600 or 9xxx series for brute power?

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 29, 2012, 03:40:57 am
content: C2Q and 9000 i doubt, this scope was manufactured recently and the C2Q and the 9000 QCs have gone EOL a long time agoThe only 775 parts last produced are the Pentium Dual Cores (They aren't half bad, quite fast actually but it loses to a A10-4600M < A Laptop Processor! Still...)The E6600 is EOL too along with the E6200the only ones in the wild west is E5400/E5700/E6700Plus i doubt Intel will continue using their 45nm process so yeah i guess Agilent will need a new mainboard although they might have 100's of C2Q leftThe last time the 9000's came out of the wild was 4 years ago

author: AntiProtonBoy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 29, 2012, 05:16:15 am
content: Those hybrid modules gave me hard-on. I love exotic electronics.

author: firewalker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 29, 2012, 09:23:57 am
content: Those hybrids would look great on an transparent acrylic box, with laser etched 13 GHz. As a decorative for the desk.Alexander.

author: Eliminateur
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 29, 2012, 11:43:31 am
content: you reminded me of a keychain i had years ago from IBM that had an actual powerpc core inside embedded into the acrylic, it was damn awesome and those 13Ghz hybrids are the perfect size for that

author: firewalker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 29, 2012, 12:10:11 pm
content: I have a keychain of the super conductor used inside the LHC. An some DIY eproms.Alexander.

author: Dread
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 29, 2012, 10:09:36 pm
content: To be honest I was really looking forward to a full Teardown. This was a little like going on a date and getting stopped before you can get your willie wet.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 30, 2012, 04:56:05 am
content: At the list price Dave probably was suffering some dysfunction at the slight possibility of it not working, even if it was not his fault. Definitely a small moment time.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 30, 2012, 06:08:48 am
content: Quote from: Dread on August 29, 2012, 10:09:36 pmWell, they were kind enough to loan it to me, and asked me not to tear it down, so I did the best I could :->Dave.

author: Toddd
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: August 30, 2012, 06:50:24 pm
content: If I'd had been lent that device, I'd be worried about turning the thing on and zapping it with a power surge, I definitely would not be removing any part of the case. In fact, I'd expect them to thread lock the screws. The last scope I borrowed had green gunk over the screws and a 'Warranty void if broken' sticker!So congrats for going as far as you did!

author: Anquietas
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 17, 2013, 04:32:28 pm
content: Quote from: AntiProtonBoy on August 29, 2012, 05:16:15 amDoes anyone know if there are publicly available research papers on the operation of these front end MCMs (or similar technology)? I would really like to see this, even if it's a decade or so too early for me.