Keysight MXR 8 channel scope - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / testgear

author: CRTbrain
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2020, 05:27:18 pm
content: https://www.keysight.com/en/pcx-3062392/infiniium-mxr-series-real-time-oscilloscopes?nid=-31731.0.00&cc=US&lc=engI saw that Keysight has introduced their MXR 8 channels scopes. Amazing to see pricing of $108,000 for a 6 GHz scope. I guess it helps that they are becoming more and more dominant in the scope market and have greater control on price. Anyone had a demo?

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2020, 06:18:16 pm
content: Are these the new oscilloscopes hinted at elsewhere on the forums? They appear to be only a smidge over my budget.

author: ralphrmartin
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2020, 06:28:56 pm
content: You might be able to haggle over that last $8k

author: jjoonathan
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 27, 2020, 06:30:37 pm
content: RTSA features?CALLED IT!!!16GS/s?CALLED IT!!!Infiniium Model T -- comes in any color you want as long as that's black? Half right13GHz? Swing and a miss -- but it's hard to interleave so well that you don't get spurs, so I don't blame them too much.Now the long wait to get my hands on one begins! I first saw the RTO1024 in 2011 and didn't find one broken/fixable/cheap on ebay until 2019, but it did eventually happen. Dibs on the first broken/cheap/fixable MXR to hit ebay a decade from now!

author: Keysight DanielBogdanoff
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 03:17:53 am
content: Well that page wasn't supposed to be indexed for search yetGreat scope, though! Got to play with one a couple weeks ago and it is really nice

author: trophosphere
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 04:37:29 am
content: I guess I'll have to hold off on a new oscilloscope purchase and save up more then. The software licenses are likely to double the price though.

author: Eric_S
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 06:52:24 am
content: Quote from: CRTbrain on April 27, 2020, 05:27:18 pmCalled it. (Low content post? Low content post.)

author: balage
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 09:03:25 am
content: I have heard a rumor, that the US list price of the base, bare MXR054 unit is around 20 000 USD.

author: maginnovision
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 09:06:08 am
content: Well it says on the page it is 19k for the 500MHz 4 Channel model so I'm not sure I'd call it a rumor.

author: balage
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 09:11:27 am
content: On what page have you seen the prices? Are there the prices there for the options/upgrades?

author: srce
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 09:22:08 am
content: Quote from: balage on April 28, 2020, 09:11:27 amIf you want to see prices on keysight's web page, make sure you have your country set to be US.

author: srce
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 09:34:15 am
content: Less noise, better display resolution and much higher waveform update rate compared to the S-series, which are 3 improvements I would like. Not sure if it would be worth the upgrade though.

author: porker1972
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 11:16:22 am
content: Noise is better, though I'm not sure is 2x lower. ENOB is the real measure, that claims to better than S-Series on every bandwidth and better than 12-bit scopes which lose any digitization resolution advantage in their front-end noise.Screen is HD 1,920 x 1,080 pixels, S-Series is XGA (1,024 x 768). Does anyone offer 4K?!Update rate at 200,000 waveforms per second is almost as fast as InfiniiVision, however a few other scopes claim that but in reality it's only in a special mode, so I'll wait and see what it really means. I think the S-Series managed about 1,000, which is typical for a high-end analysis scope which is more about deep memory than update rate. RTSA mode, with 400,000 FFTs per second is insane though - that makes it an 8-channel gapless spectrum analyser.

author: nfmax
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 11:30:12 am
content: Quote from: porker1972 on April 28, 2020, 11:16:22 amThat's bloody fast - might start to run into export license issues!

author: nfmax
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 11:34:06 am
content: Quote from: Keysight DanielBogdanoff on April 28, 2020, 03:17:53 amI assume this will replace the S series? I had a play with one of those a few years ago and was very impressed, but the MXR looks as if it blows the S series out of the water!P.S. Get well soon!

author: Eric_S
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 11:37:42 am
content: Quote from: Keysight DanielBogdanoff on April 28, 2020, 03:17:53 amWhen can we expect to see reviewers to get their hands on this? (Like EEVBlog / The Signal Path)

author: filssavi
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 11:51:44 am
content: Finally something competitive also in the mid end as well, let’s hope for optically isolated probes

author: CRTbrain
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 02:27:28 pm
content: I heard a rumor that Keysight is introducing isolated probes, but at a much lower cost than the Tek ones.

author: CRTbrain
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 02:35:50 pm
content: I'm not sure if MXR noise is better or the same as the S. It appears to be similar. In the datasheet it says noise values for 2 GHz and below are taken with high-res mode. This would be done to get a lower value. Noise values aren't shown for "normal" mode which is disappointing. I don't typically use high-res, as it's only useful for repetitive signals when in run mode.I know all the scope vendors try to position as having lower noise and it can be tough to determine what is real.ENOB values can also be challenging to interpret correctly, as it's related to a specific BW, a specific vertical setting, and doesn't include phase issues, nor offset attributes.Keysight appears to be out inventing all competitors for high-end scopes.

author: jjoonathan
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 02:59:00 pm
content: Quote from: porker1972 on April 28, 2020, 11:16:22 amR&S has had fast updates in their analysis tier (RTE/RTO/RTP) since ~2010, and there it means: with short 1k acquisitions and all channels, it'll do 1,000,000 Wfm/s in dots mode, 600k Wfm/s in lines, and for longer acquisitions all the way into gigapoints use the rule (1.5 Billion / acq_points) to get Wfm/s. It's extremely nice to have both "modes" of operation in a single instrument, because even when I've got an application that does need the memory, I wind up doing a lot of "low-analysis" probing that benefits from Wfm/s. It's great to see Keysight join this fight in the analysis-class tier after crushing it with InfiniiVision!It's even better to see Keysight leapfrog the R&S oscilloscope spectrum analysis. The big caveat in R&S scope land is that it only acts like a real time spectrum analyzer -- taking overlapped FFTs, compositing them for display, and running them past zone triggers --inside acquisitions. That's a big limitation. It's still a heck of a lot faster than swept analyzers, frequency domain zone triggers -> time correlation is still a brilliant workflow, but POI isn't maximized like in a true RTSA. Caveat: I only *know* this to be the case on the slightly older instruments, but I've asked, both in person and online , and I'm pretty sure it's still the case on their latest.One question on the MXR: the brochure mentions Digital Down Conversion -- If I want to capture 1MHz of spectrum at 2.4 GHz and time correlate it to, say, a SPI bus, am I forced to sample the SPI bus at 5GS/s, burning through memory and Wfm/s? Or am I allowed to sample the DDC signal and SPI bus at a few MS/s?EDIT: Is there a way to link to youtube without embedding a preview?EDIT2: Is there a way to link to youtube without embedding a preview and without using a sketchy URL shortener?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpTK7Mpqbi0

author: mike1305
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 04:28:48 pm
content: Infiniium MXR-Series product manager here. I can't hang out to answer all the questions (there are some good ones), as you can imagine I'm pretty busy with my day job right now. Guess it was serendipitous that I can't take a vacation anywhere even if I wanted to, ha ha. Anyway, maybe I'll sync up with Daniel to do some kind of Q&A session when everything calms down.I will say that I saw this meme in another thread and definitely laughed out loud - I used to work with the InfiniiVision team for 6-7 years and I can tell you UPDATE RATE RULES haha.https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/keysight-to-launch-new-oscilloscope/msg3017444/#msg3017444FWIW, it's ~200k without any special modes or tradeoffs. I can get it up to ~300k when I turn off interpolation and nuke the sample rate/memory, but autoscale a signal and you're rocking and rolling at ~200k.Big PR splash coming soon (look for my goofy face in Daniel's basement in a video or two, don't worry we kept our distance), but we've already been showing it to our big customers worldwide, so figured there was no real benefit of waiting any longer for the web and datasheet.

author: mike1305
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 04:32:40 pm
content: Quote from: jjoonathan on April 28, 2020, 02:59:00 pmMin DDC span is 40 MHz, and you can only view a signal as time domain or DDC (or RTSA, which uses DDC). so there is no time correlation. You'd have to use FFT like before. Then it just becomes a question of what RBW you want to figure out the sample rate you'd chew up. We expect the DDC/RTSA option to be popular with more hardcore RF folks who want to stream 8 phase coherent channels of stuff to something like VSA.I'll stop now before the PR team yells at meExpect plenty more after the press event.

author: mike1305
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 04:41:22 pm
content: Quote from: CRTbrain on April 28, 2020, 02:35:50 pmFWIW, our high-res (and most others) aren't averaging. they are real time high-resolution. you can use it on a non-repetitive or even single shot waveform as long as you can deal with the BW/SR reduction. this applies to all scopes. Ours in a bit "smarter" (details later) but essentially the thought is, if you have a 1 GHz scope and are making 1 GHz measurements, Nyquist tells us 16 GSa/s is overkill anyway, so why not use that extra sampling power to boxcar average in real time and get lower noise and more resolution? can't hurt, might help.And thanks for the complimentThis ASIC we lifted from the UXR-Series is freaking nuts....

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 09:11:38 pm
content: Quote from: jjoonathan on April 28, 2020, 02:59:00 pmRemove the http.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpTK7Mpqbi0

author: porker1972
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 09:11:59 pm
content: Quote from: jjoonathan on April 28, 2020, 02:59:00 pmI defy anyone to get the R&S scope to achieve the claimed million waveforms per second. We had one on evaluation about 5 years ago: we went through everything and couldn't get the "waveform update rate indicator" above 50k. I even rang them, the sales guy and tech support didn't know. I'm sure it's even worse than the Tektronix "fast acquisition mode" in that's only possible in some obscure settings and by saluting pixies on the way to the office that morning. As for the R&S scope UI and button layout - it was totally un-intuitive, we struggled to use it so didn't buy, no matter how high they offered to discount.

author: porker1972
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: April 28, 2020, 09:36:48 pm
content: Quote from: jjoonathan on April 27, 2020, 06:30:37 pmThe way the global economy is going you might be able to make an offer... trade-in maybe?I an surprised anything is being launched now - it must be killing companies trying to release any kind of product in lockdown- they can't see customers for demos, hold press meetings, attend trade shows... How can you show customers the star features, and how can a customer decide if it works in their application if they can't physically get a unit?

author: Eric_S
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2020, 05:32:03 am
content: My company is looking to buy scopes for example (Tek scopes, mind you. We have a ton of probes, "people know Tek", bla bla...). People take their work and tools home and do their tings there, so everything keeps flowing. It's so we can have new products to drive sales once the economy picks up.

author: NoisyBoy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2020, 06:37:32 am
content: I like it, I may see a Merry Christmas To Me present coming to my hobby lab.Can't wait to learn more about it and digesting the datasheet. At a glance, it has all the features I want, it compare very favorable against the 6000 X-Series and the Infiniium S-Series, and the 15.6" HD screen is the clear winner.Daniel, remember I asked you about a future scope with a world class display a year ago? Looks like Keysight have made my wish come true

author: snoopy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2020, 07:48:50 am
content: Quote from: CRTbrain on April 27, 2020, 05:27:18 pmFinally a scope we can all affordLOL

author: Sighound36
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2020, 08:51:45 am
content: I would be interested in trying one of these for my personal lab, though 2Ghz is sufficientIf this would be around the £30K mark I could be tempted depending on its full functionality and options costings

author: srce
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: April 29, 2020, 10:34:04 am
content: Quote from: snoopy on April 29, 2020, 07:48:50 amDon't forget that's the base price. RTSA, digital and extra memory are all options - you'll need extra probes to work at that frequency that are thousands each - then you get to the s/w options

author: jjoonathan
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 02, 2020, 08:15:51 pm
content: QuoteI wasn't reporting marketing material, I was reporting the behavior of the RTO1024 about 5 feet to my left. If I hit PRESET and set trigger to FREE RUN it gets 640k wfm/s and then DISPLAY > DOTS gets it to a smidge over 1M wfm/s. I don't usually bother with dots because 600k is plenty, and it'll do 600k in line mode with noise filling the screen. Cursors don't degrade that, four active channels doesn't degrade that, masks and accelerated measurements send it to 250k, and unaccelerated measurements send it to 30k. It sounds like you had a buggy scope.As for the UI, I love it, minus a few warts, but every scope has warts. To each their own, but I'm gratified to see that most of my favorite peculiarities seem to be gaining mindshare rather than losing it:* Signal path diagrams to organize settings* Good STFFTs (ultra hyped to see MXR take this to its logical conclusion)* History mode (segmented mode on by default in ring-buffer configuration, press button to see previous acqs, hyped to see this on MXR)* Configured hysteresis is shown, visually, during trigger adjust, even on crazy triggers* Single RGB-coded vertical control (so that math, ref, FFTs, MSO, not to mention 8 channels can all share it)* Window transparency (adjustable with intensity knob)One feature I love that hasn't experienced growth in mindshare:* Third timebase knob to adjust memory depthQuote from: porker1972 on April 28, 2020, 09:36:48 pmOne can hope, but every time I've quoted out a trade-in in this tier, at both my day job at big co and my personal lab, the trade-in credit wound up being about what I would expect to get on ebay. I suspect that to some degree they really do just turn around and pawn the trade-ins: I bought my Rohde and Schwarz scope from Teledyne Lecroy's ebay shop (yes, really -- pic attached) and that seems like a plausible explanation. I've had much more luck negotiating probes, adapters, and options, but those are much less of a factor for the personal lab. Of course, there's only one way to find out in these crazy times, and you can bet I'll request a few quotesYou can also bet I'll find an excuse to play with one the moment a MXR shows up on a coworker's bench

author: srce
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 13, 2020, 09:28:54 am
content: Seems the RTSA option is $10k, MSO $5k and ARB $2k.I was considering buying a Rigol RSA for RTSA functionality, so $10k for this option seems reasonable in comparison. Sensitivity is 5dB worse, but you get 320MHz real-time bandwidth instead of 40MHz and phase noise on the Keysight is 13dB better. Wonder how well it would work as a general purpose SA though? Looks a bit like the standard Infiniium FFT GUI - which I find a bit clunky.50MHz ARB is silly pricing, when you can pick up a standalone 200MHz unit for a third of the price.

author: JPortici
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 13, 2020, 10:42:32 am
content: i wonder.. use cases?I sometimes would like to have a 5-6-8 channel scope because of three phase motor driver, or 3PH + DCDC for DC link but i would be satisfied by 350MHzI wonder what would you do with 8 channel, 6GHz and real time spectrum..

author: pascal_sweden
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 13, 2020, 11:10:22 am
content: Can someone highlight to me why oscilloscopes are used for signals above 1 Ghz?Bit Error Rate and Eye diagrams. For that you need an oscilloscope that can deal with a high frequency range.What are the other use cases in this frequency range where an oscilloscope is a better choice than a spectrum analyzer?Where does the oscilloscope complement the spectrum analyzer?

author: JPortici
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 13, 2020, 11:14:41 am
content: mm.. I'm sure that there are use cases for keeping things "real time" altough i can not see them

author: snoopy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 13, 2020, 11:20:47 am
content: Quote from: pascal_sweden on May 13, 2020, 11:10:22 amPCI Express is one app where you need lots of bandwidthLooks good anyway

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 13, 2020, 11:23:35 am
content: Quote from: jjoonathan on April 28, 2020, 02:59:00 pmWell, some LeCroy scopes could reach up to 1M wfms/s so it's not extraordinary for a more advanced scope being able to achieve higher update rates. But the thing is nobody bought a high end scope for update rates so it wasn't really seen a a major criteria, and still isn't. As long as the update rates are not excessively low (i.e. in the tens of updates/sec) then the update rate doesn't matter because in this class it's all about analysis and triggers. That really hasn't changed.R&S was the first vendor who actually made a fuss about update rates in the marketing for its lower high-end scope RTO1000, which was R&S' first scope in this class. Back then they were probably looking for something they could use as a differentiator to other high end scopes from established brands, so they marketed heavy with the trigger rate.Looks like KS wants to play the same game in the high-end segment now. Which is fine as long as the increase in update rate doesn't come with limitations in other areas, as it's the case for the InfiniVision scopes.Quote from: porker1972 on April 28, 2020, 09:11:59 pmI remember back when the RTO1000 came out and we got some units for evaluation that they indeed reached high trigger rates, even though they didn't go all the way up to 1M (I think we got some 700k out of them which is still better than the majority of analog scopes). Did it matter for what we do or make any of our measurements better? No.We still decided against them mostly because many of our engineers didn't like the UI, and available probes were limited. In addition, pricing of some options was borderline extortionate, and the heavily marketed 16bit HD resolution which was introduced shortly after was just another oversampling mode which you got with other scopes for free. And like most instruments we got from R&S, the early versions were full of software bugs.Which was bit of a shame, as there were some really nice things in these scopes (like being able to change the brightness of the LEDs), it was reasonably compact and not excessively noisy. But so far we haven't seen anything which would be enough to make us move from Keysight and LeCroy.

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 13, 2020, 11:35:50 am
content: Quote from: pascal_sweden on May 13, 2020, 11:10:22 amBecause you want to see the waveshape of a signal which has frequency components over 1GHz?QuoteWe use scopes for wideband applications. A conventional SA is useless because it's swept (i.e. during one 'acquisition' of the set frequency band it will capture a slice at different points in time, which is useless to get a time-coherent spectrum view). The analysis BW (RBW) is usually limited to a few MHz up to a couple of hundred. There are RTSAs of course but even the best one have an analysis BW not exceeding 1GHz or so.On the other hand, in one application we use a Keysigh Infiniium-S to get an analysis BW of 8GHz.You can't get that with a SA.QuoteAt least for us, it's more a replacement. SAs have their strength when it comes to absolute RF performance. When analysis BW counts however, the scope wins.

author: nfmax
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 13, 2020, 11:58:09 am
content: Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on May 13, 2020, 11:23:35 amWhat has changed is that DSOs are now marching into real-time analyser territory, for which sustained data throughput is one of the key parameters. Fast waveform update rate is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for such use.

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 13, 2020, 12:56:50 pm
content: Quote from: nfmax on May 13, 2020, 11:58:09 amI disagree. The waveform rate isn't really relevant, for two reasons.One, simply because even if your scope achieves that magical 1M updates/s then you're still blind almost 90% of the time. Which means you still miss most of the information in a dynamic signal.Secondly, and much more important, for spectral measurements in general, there is no need to rely on the typical scope trigger to look for an specific event to start the acquisition sequence. Because we're no longer in the time domain so the exact point when the acquisition starts is no longer important, as long as the event is somewhere within the acquisition cycle and enough data is captured to perform the FFT. So you don't really need the scope trigger, you don't need time to to re-arm, you can essentially just run the sample memory in an endless cycle, only interrupted long enough to move the sampled data into processing (you might even be able to avoid that short inactive period if your design is dual-ported).Which is also how many wideband receivers and RTSAs work.When using a scope for spectral work, what really matters is the size of sample memory, because the memory alone determines how large of spectral sample in time you can capture. Because as soon as the memory is full there will be a very long (in comparison) period where your instrument is completely blind before you can re-acquire data again.

author: Fred27
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 13, 2020, 01:10:00 pm
content: How much is the bottle opener option?

author: Eric_S
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 13, 2020, 08:24:36 pm
content: If I want to faff arount with a motor and brake system, two arb ports might be nice. Not that any other comparable scope offers that, mind you, but I was half thinking that this one might given its less capable siblings.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 13, 2020, 10:39:32 pm
content: Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on May 13, 2020, 12:56:50 pmStill pushing that horse? You're misleadingly trying to make an equivalence between waveform update rate (drawing things to the screen, like building an eye diagram or histogram) and acquisition rates (dumping data to memory for later retrieval, often separately called segmented or sequenced acquisition to differentiate that).Its as stark as the difference between "filing" documents to the in-tray, or reading them. The rates of each are radically different measures of performance. Even low cost scopes push big numbers for their sequence acquisitions:https://siglentna.com/digital-oscilloscopes/You've never been able to show any substantiated claim of Lecroy scopes achieving high waveform update rates, only fast trigger rates, which they openly and honestly specify:Also you try and link some arbitrary update rate and blind time together, when that only applies for specific conditions and overheads, this magic 1,000,000 updates/second you seem fixated on does not imply any specific blind time. Yes, the major brands do have a blind time around 90% under the conditions which they hit their peak rates, but that is not applicable across other conditions, and is not some fundamental barrier. If the waveform update rate is 1,000,000 per second, the blind time in undefined, other information is required to determine it.

author: snoopy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2020, 05:20:38 am
content: Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on May 13, 2020, 12:56:50 pmTry viewing a composite video signal with a low acquisition rate scope or a scope with no DPO(ok I know, who looks at composite video signals these days but you get my drift ) What does the color burst look like to you ?Now view it on any Tek scope with DPO because I know how much you hate Tek scopescheers

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2020, 10:25:54 am
content: Quote from: Someone on May 13, 2020, 10:39:32 pmActually, it yourself who (still, as I remember we had this discussion in the past) gets confused.You mix the waveform update rate with the screen refresh rate, which are two unrelated things.The screen refresh rate (i.e. the rate at which the display gets updatd) is usually down to 60Hz on a modern scope (and that includes all these high update rate DSOs such as the DSOX3kT).The waveform update rate (i.e. the rate at how often the scope can update its waveform record) is different. This is the trigger rate, and contains the whole acuisition as well as the subsequent blind time a scope needs for re-arming and processing.As to segmented/sequence mode, this is a specific mode where the sample memory is chopped up in small blocks (segments) so the long scope memory can be used for a set of short memory acquisitions, thereby increasing the waveform/trigger rate while being able to make some use of deep memory.Also, segmented mode is pretty irrelevant when we using scopes for RF work.QuoteNot sure what you're on about "filing documents" here.It's not just car analogies that suck, that's for sure.QuoteWell, I certainly did before my extended absence, as we had this discussion before (more than once).And I'm sure I did already present this:I'm not sure what this is to you, but I can see a LeCroy scope pushing a trigger rate of in excess of 1M waveforms/s in NORMAL mode (although it's in WaveStream mode which is an analog-style persistence mode where update rates are maximized).QuoteOK, I'll bite one last time.The Waveform Update rate (which is identical with the Trigger Rate) is a measure of how many times a scope can update its waveform record. The blind time which follows the acquisition process is a major (actually, the largest) part of the sequence which is the reciprocal of the waveform update rate. It's as simple as that.I use the 1M wfms/s figure because this is roughly the maximum any scope as of today can achieve (actually, it's slighly higher, but 1M wfms/s is close enough), and it's simpler just taking the max figure when talking about high waveform rate scopes. I thought that was clear, but I guess it's not.Now as to the blind time: yes, it does vary by scope, and also depends to a certain extend on the memory length and timebase setting used for the acquisition. So you got at least this one right.There are a couple of things you miss, though.First, the blind time example I gave was not only rough estimate, i's also a percentage figure. And for a given update rate (like, for example, 1M wfms/s) this percentage figure doesn't vary a lot between scopes. So if you really want to nitpick you can of course argue that it may not be exact 90%, it could well be 93%, 89%, 87% or something else, but at the end of the day the fact remains that at that such high update rates the blind time of any scope available today will always be *vastly* bigger than the acquisition time.Which means relying on excessively high update rates to capture rare events has roughly a 1 in 10 chance that your scope actually sees it.Secondly, yes, you can certainly reduce the percentage the blind time presents in the wavform update cycle. You just have to increase the acquisition time, either by lowering the sample rate or by increasing the sample memory. Eventually, your blind time will be smaller than your acquisition time. But then your waveform rate will also have dropped like a rock. And, even when it's smaller, there is still a blind time where your scope will miss events between acquisition cycles.Which means relying on repeated updates to capture rare events is still a gamble, even your odds may have increased (e.g. 9 out of 10 chance your scope sees it). However, if you can increase the acuisition time to capture your period of interest in one acquisition, and then set a trigger for the event of interest, your the odds of your scope seeing the event will be 100%.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2020, 11:21:31 am
content: Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on May 14, 2020, 10:25:54 amIf you want to roll this back to absolute fundamentals, feel free. But nowhere do I "confuse" display frame rate with waveform update rate. Throwing up more FUD to discredit anyone who dares point out the gaping holes in your nonsense is a transparent attempt at distraction.The trigger rate and waveform update rate can be completely disconnected. They are not in any way equivalent. Keysight have to clarify this in their marketing material to avoid your sorts of misleading claims:Quote from: KeysightWaveform update rate is widely understood to be the number of acquisitions per second that are drawn to the screen.Segmented mode in most scopes doesn't draw all the data to the screen as its assumed you will go back through them after the capture sequence is complete. The MXR scope put this in a rather poetic way for a data sheet:Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on May 14, 2020, 10:25:54 amDumping acquisitions to memory without them being seen, is in no way comparable, to putting their information onto the screen in realtime. One is trivial, the other is resource intensive. Just as pushing through acquisition data without putting it to the screen is not comparable to drawing it there.Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on May 14, 2020, 10:25:54 amYou can keep pointing to a video of a scope showing an impressive trigger rate, there is no evidence its drawing or processing the data from those triggers. We could go to the manual for that scope, which nowhere claims anything other than a high trigger rate. They even go as far as this:Why would they include a special waveform/second optimized mode if the normal mode could outperform it? Note the manufacturer claim, 8000wfms/second.Competitive comparisons have consistently found very poor updates rates for that model of scope:https://www.tek.com/document/competitive/tektronix-mso-dpo4000-series-vs-lecroy-waverunner-xi-fact-sheet-0Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on May 14, 2020, 10:25:54 amYou can keep trying to redefine industry standard terms to suit your misleading arguments, but we'll keep calling it out and pointing to that nonsense. Your emotive rubbish that follows on from that is your "standard" claims which are getting old.Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on May 14, 2020, 10:25:54 amExcessively high but still not high enough? Ok, you just want to say its a bad thing no matter if its a high number or a low number.Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on May 14, 2020, 10:25:54 amThere is no technical barrier to faster update rates than what is currently offered. There are commercial products (but not general purpose oscilloscopes) with zero blind time that guarantee they draw 100% of the samples to the histogram, on sustained XXGsa/s streams. Updates rates are not fixed in stone and imply all the extra conditions you keep claiming they do.Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on May 14, 2020, 10:25:54 amAssuming there is a single trigger which you can configure to catch the event. Great, you captured a single event. You can keep falling back to this extreme position which claims everything is solvable with triggers, but its not true for all applications. Some of which require a statistical measure built from an eye diagram. So scopes have specifications for how fast they update the display, waveforms/second or UIs/second (again they can be different and are not equivalent).

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2020, 11:23:18 am
content: Quote from: snoopy on May 14, 2020, 05:20:38 amTry viewing a composite video signal with a low acquisition rate scope or a scope with no DPO(ok I know, who looks at composite video signals these days but you get my drift ) What does the color burst look like to you ?I'm not much into video stuff and may be missing something here, but what do you need a very high waveform update rate for with a signal which changes just some 25 or 30 times per second?As a side note, CVBS video is still widely used, for example with vehicular cameras and DVRs. So it's not that no-one looks at CBVS signals anymoreQuoteI don't *hate* Tek scopes (and I do consider attaching emotions to specific brands as something juvenile), it's just my experience that, compared to what we can get from other brands, their digital scopes are simply sub-par (and have been for a long time).And considering that Tek's scope sales have been declining for years, it appears that many other professional users agree.

author: tv84
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2020, 11:51:43 am
content: Quote from: Fred27 on May 13, 2020, 01:10:00 pmTypical prices... but no options.

author: jemangedeslolos
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2020, 12:24:04 pm
content: Quote from: tv84 on May 14, 2020, 11:51:43 amYou ? Looking at options prices ? Really ?The world is turning bad !Hello by the way

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2020, 01:56:42 pm
content: Quote from: Someone on May 14, 2020, 11:21:31 amYes, this can happen on scopes with unlocked triggers when the processing time exceeds the re-arm time (I vaguely remember I saw this effect on the I think the HP 54700 Series, or might have been one of the early Infiniiums).I doubt this is an issue for most scopes built after say this side of 2000, and I challenge you to find any A-brand scope which came out since 2010 which does that.QuoteYes, on analog scopes. Not on digital scopes, though, where there is no correlation between the time and frequency a scope updates it's view of the signal and the time and frequency of screen updates (which usually happen at low rates like 60Hz). On DSOs, the update rate means therefore the rate of how many times per second a scope can update its waveform record.QuoteIndeed. Because the point of sequence mode is essentually to stretch the existing memory to capture repetitive events which are spaced too far out for a normal long acquisition. So the scope essentially runs a series of short acquisitions, but saving on processing time.QuoteThis is where you go wrong again.In general, every event that is captured by the scope and ends up in acquisition memory is displayed. The excessive triggers KS was talking about happen during the blind time, not during acquisition.There are some exceptions, though:- Some scopes have some kind of 'pre-roll and 'post-roll' padding, i.e. they start their acuisition a short time before they actually capture data which is processed, and continue capturing for a short time after they stop acuiring data for processing. It's often a consequence of certain aspects of the scope's internal architecture. But this 'padding' is completely transparent and not visible to the user. So for all intends of purposes, the true acquisition period is what the user selected (the padding is, essentially, just a bit more dead-time).- Some scopes, again like Keysight infiniVision scopes, perform a full memory capture as their last acquisition after pressing STOP or in SINGLE acquisition mode, thereby (depending on the timebase), acquiring excess data outside the displayed timeframe. This is outside normal operation (the scope must have been halted), and even the data outside the view is available for viewing.- Some scopes can be set to use more acquisition memory than required to capture for the displayed timebase, resulting them to capture data which is outside the displayed view. This data is lost for viewing unless the scope is halted and the timebase changed, in which case the data of the last acuisition before the scope entered STOP mode becomes visible. This effect has recently been topic of an extensive discussion and I'm sure you agree with me that this is a niche situation which doesn't reflect any normal or recommended use.- Tek's MDO Series (and it seems some other models such as the DPO Series) have a function called 'Auto'Magnify' where, when the user selects a short time base, they capture a long time base and present the user with a window representing the selected shorter timebase. This window can then be moved around to view the data that is outside the original selected timebase window, i.e. all the acquired data can be viewed. It's unique in a way that it presents a mode where in normal operation not every captured event immediately ends up on the screen. I am not aware of any other scopes which offer a similar function, so it's a slighty special case.But for any normal operation (RUN mode) without any specific modes or use cases, every event which occurs during the effective acquisition period will be displayed.QuoteWhy should they, after all the update rate isn't something that is high on the list of priorities for buyers of this class of scope.Also, this scope was equipped with a stronger 1.8GHz P-M processor instead of the stock 1.2GHz Celeron. The performance of X-Stream very much depends on the main processor (and its cache size), and the update rate was *a lot* lower with the stock Celeron, which always kept the CPU load at 100% almost constantly, ham-stringing performance in many other modes, too. I never understood why LeCroy skimped so much when it came to CPU power on the scopes, which after all rely on an architecture where the CPU is most critical. The 1.8GHz processor was later offered as an upgrade for that scope from LeCroy.Also, on every 'real' LeCroy scope (i.e. which isn't just a rebadged variant of something else) every event which is captured in memory is displayed (if that channel display is active, of course, because you can acquire without having the channel displayed on screen). The scope in the video will show every event that occurs during the acuisition phase on the screen, as it's been one of LeCroy's design mottos since back when they were mostly serving the science market.QuoteWaveStream is an analog scope like persistence mode which is a bit like Tek's FastAcq DPO mode, just without all the drawbacks (it runs at full sample rate (10GSa/s) and you can use all measurements and analysis tools on it, although they will only use the data of the last acquisition, not history data). As far as I remember it circumvents certain processing steps and pushes data directly to the main processor (also, don't forget that X-Stream uses data compression, so it doesn't have to transfer and process every sample which hasn't changed again and again like other scopes). I guess the idea was that if you wanted to do simple eye diagrams you'd just press one button and that's it.I've seen the 'above 8k wfms/s) figure in early documents describing the technology (maybe around 2003/2004 time frame), later no numbers were given probably because the actual rate varied so much depending on the CPU and also on the software version (in earlier software versions the update rate was also quite inconsistent). Considering the dependencies, it was probably seen as futile to list max numbers and update them everytime the software improves or a faster CPU has been qualified for the scope, so why bother? LeCroy customers didn't seem to care much for update rates anyways, and for what it is WaveStream has been more than fast enough.Considering that the WRXi and it's successors sold rather well, it doesn't seem they were wrong.We have lots of LeCroy scopes (although no WRXi's or any of the older ones), and WaveStream was useful occasionally to show a colleague some instability or continuous changes in a signal. But I haven't seen seen it exactly been widely used.Quote"Competitive comparisons" have found all kind of nonsense which is, quite often, the result of (intentional?) mis-operation. I wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw their brand's heaviest scope.QuoteYeah, whatever bro. You keep swallowing that marketing stuffQuoteMath clearly isn't your strong point. Because if so you'd understand that even with 1 Billion wfms/s there would still be a blind time, and it would be close to 100%The simple fact you can't understand is that if you have to rely on multiple acquisitions there will be a certain amount if blind time, simple as that. And because the blind time percentage actually increases with waveform update rate, a high update rate means the chance of your scope actually capturing the event goes down.Which contradicts the idea that high waveform rates would be somehow useful to find rare events, especially when the uncertainty is so large.QuoteThere certainly is, because an increase in update rate means a reduction in the update period (the time slice in which acquisition and blind time must fit), and even if there was no blind time (which, with scopes, there always is) there is still a hard limit in the time for the ADC to fill the dedicated sample memory.QuoteYes, streaming digitizers. Which, actually, are digitizers, not scopes.QuoteIndeed, they are not set in stone, they are limited by simple math.QuoteYou can capture as many events as you like, as long as they are not coming faster than the scope needs for a complete acquisition cycle with blind time (like on these rare events that, supposedly, high update rates are so good for).QuoteOK, name one. Describe a situation which you can only solve with a high update rate scopes and persistence mode.QuoteSo how does this square with the fact that those scopes which are predominantly used for eye diagrams (like the various Infiniums, i.e. all the scopes which are offered with options for exact this application) have mostly max update rates in the few thousands?

author: Sighound36
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2020, 02:13:11 pm
content: Gentleman please, there are ladies present its only a scope. Albeit the possibility of rather a good one

author: snoopy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2020, 02:34:33 pm
content: Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on May 14, 2020, 11:23:18 amYou should try using the scopes for a change instead of speccing them in for other people to use. There is a big difference between using an instrument yourself and reading it's capabilities from the spec sheetI still have a color bar generator from my days of designing digital video electronics and repairing TV's. I can post the results from one of my Tek scopes if you like, with and without DPO oncheers

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2020, 03:55:46 pm
content: I fixed your broken quoting. You're welcomeQuote from: snoopy on May 14, 2020, 02:34:33 pmNot sure what you try to say, other than that you don't seem to have an answer my question aboveI've certainly spent enough time in front of a scope, and had the pleasure (or displeasure) to quite a few different ones during the last three decades.QuoteGood for youQuoteI'm not sure what this should show us, other than that you seem to have no idea how much scopes have advanced since the days when analog scopes or repairing analog TVs was still a thing, but hey, I'm always up for a blast from the (distant) pastI'd suggest you do this in a separate thread, though.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2020, 04:44:19 pm
content: Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on May 14, 2020, 10:25:54 amThe truth is somewhere in the middle. After all you can only set a trigger condition if you have enough information to setup the trigger condition correctly. In many real-life situations this isn't possible or by the time you have the information you already captured the anomaly so the whole point of setting up a trigger becomes moot. High waveform update rates aren't the answer either. IOW: you have to consider other ways to pick up an anomaly. For example by using things like color grading, reverse brightness, off-line analysis, etc. What is best depends highly on the situation. The more experience, the easier it becomes to pick the right method sooner than later.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2020, 10:17:23 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on May 14, 2020, 04:44:19 pmCompletely agree. It will be interesting to try out the RTSA and see if that can provide richer information than the time domain waveform for say (no-longer high speed) serial applications at XXXMHz or low GHz line rates. Keysight are pushing the convergence of both deep memory plus analysis suite, and high waveform rates in the MXR so you have both of those tools available in a single scope (as R&S have been doing already). Adding in RTSA as well might be another dimension, or just another half-baked idea, needs some testing and evaluation of it to find out what strengths and weaknesses it has.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2020, 10:59:19 pm
content: Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on May 14, 2020, 01:56:42 pmRather than trying to be internally misleading, the rest of us are discussing things using common understanding of language and terms. And will clarify them as needed.Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on May 14, 2020, 01:56:42 pmThis is a good example of where you try and drive the misdirection. I keep making it very clear, putting acquisitions into memory where theycanbe looked at after the fact in a slower way, is in no way comparable to putting them on screen in a sustained manner.Dumping acquisitions to a circular buffer, or just discarding them outright. Completely different to the waveforms/second update rate that counts the number of waveforms drawn to the screen.Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on May 14, 2020, 01:56:42 pmYou can imagine any sort of inappropriate or poor application of technology you like. There are sampling systems with 0% blind time, its possible. Trying to argue that higher waveform update rates under the same conditions is somehow a bad thing is bizarre. Yes, you can walk off the goalposts to some other new and different condition but thats not addressing the point, just adding more confusion.Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on May 14, 2020, 01:56:42 pmIt does not require these arbitrary changes to the conditions you insist on. A processing system can draw 2D histograms on a continuous basis with zero blind time, every sample that arrives can be processed and drawn to the display. I've designed and built such systems. Current scopes are limited because they have a processing time (the blind time) where they cannot accept new data, with more processing resources that time can be reduced to less than the sample rate and then there is 0% blind time.Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on May 14, 2020, 01:56:42 pmTwo examples:Tuning termination and/or equalization on high speed serial streams. It can be hit with pathological patterns to try and examine corner cases, but PRBS and high update rates provide a wider coverage. And the characteristics can't be captured with a single trigger, or practically with a suite of triggers. Building the eye was annoying slow on older scopes, faster update rates allow quicker iterations/test time.Tuning PLL loops. This is where the RTSA might be able to show richer information. But the key component again is seeing as many of the transitions as possible to check for outliers, and bring the tuning parameters to their optimal values. Its higher order things like the settling time or overshoot of the clock rate, that are difficult or impossible to describe as triggers.Yes, you could make a deep memory capture and run analysis of that offline to extract the information. But realtime and using a human to interpret the results is faster. And while tuning you will be within the acceptable space but want to reach some margin away from failure. Hard pass/fail triggers are of no use.Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on May 14, 2020, 01:56:42 pmThat would be why this MXR scope, the topic of this thread, is interesting. It brings fast update rates to that class of scope, they publicise it clearly in the marketing material:

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2020, 07:05:55 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on May 14, 2020, 04:44:19 pmThere is always something you know. For example, you might know how the signal is supposed to look like.I'm not saying you can trigger on everything with something like a DS105z but with a more advanced scope you should be able to trigger on pretty much anything.QuoteI'd really like to see some examples of a signal where you can't trigger on a specific event. Because right now I can't think of any.QuoteThat is certainly true, there's no point testing if you already got the information you need.QuoteMy point is simply that using triggers to capture an event is the only way you can be sure that the event is actually captured, which puts the idea that a high update rate is required to capture rare events ad absurdum.But I'm really curious as to cases a trigger would not work to capture an event. Examining such cases could certainly be an interesting discussion (preferrably in a separate thread).

author: srce
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2020, 08:05:26 am
content: Quote from: Someone on May 14, 2020, 10:59:19 pmThey're not exactly selling the S series well there in that comparison. They've ignored that on 2 channels it's 20GSa/s and 800Mpts. Also the jitter figures in the datasheets are lower for the S series

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2020, 08:18:45 am
content: Quote from: srce on May 15, 2020, 08:05:26 amHa ha, even comparing to their own product. But if it keeps the second hand prices down, no complaints?

author: srce
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2020, 08:35:35 am
content: Quote from: Someone on May 15, 2020, 08:18:45 amIt's funny how they give it a green tick, even when they have listed higher figures for the other scopes too

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2020, 09:28:38 am
content: Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on May 15, 2020, 07:05:55 amBut that doesn't always help you. The signal might not be wrong but the data it represents may be wrong (think about an SPI or I2C bus). Especially when looking for intermittent problems you'll want to use a brute force method which catches as much information as possible because the cycle time is so long. A method which potentially catches both bad signal and bad data is most efficient but since you don't know either coming up with a trigger criterium is next to impossible. Deep memory (whether segmented or in one piece) helps a lot because you can likely also capture the cause (which is the interesting part) in one go. However the kind of problems I'm hinting at go way beyond repairing something relatively simple like a power supply. One of the problems I'm hunting right now is why a SoC is crashing on 1 board from a batch of 10. There is a myriad of possible causes (including software) and they need to be checked one by one. But this is getting off-topic.

author: tv84
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2020, 10:18:03 am
content: Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on May 15, 2020, 07:05:55 amLet's not go OT here but i think, by definition, that can't happen. If you captured an event it's because there was a trigger (whatever kind it may be).

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2020, 10:20:29 am
content: Quote from: tv84 on May 15, 2020, 10:18:03 amYou have to define that a bit better. You can use a trigger as a filter (for example specific I2C addresses in order to prevent overfilling the memory) but setting a very specific trigger for an unknown event is next to impossible. In such cases you will be collecting a set of data which then needs to be processed in one way or another. Kind of like how they find fine gold. They first wash & seperate the big rocks and dirt and then seperate the gold from the mixture of fine sand and gold dust.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2020, 10:36:42 am
content: Quote from: tv84 on May 15, 2020, 10:18:03 amThere are things that are simply hard to define a trigger for, which is why masks and zone triggers came along. As mentioned previously a non-monotonic edge can be hard to catch with triggers. But triggering on events and capturing traces that only meet those criteria narrows what you are looking at. Some times that is exactly what you want, but other times it needs a larger picture of the signals in context.Triggering is still important to correlate the waveforms against something, but you might want to measure the spread of a parameter like jitter in a serial signal with an embedded clock. The trigger is just getting the waveforms collected for another step of analysis. A brute force approach only using triggers would confirm the bounds of the jitter, but wouldn't identify spurs or odd distributions of the variations.

author: tv84
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2020, 10:46:40 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on May 15, 2020, 10:20:29 amI understand that and totally agree with you both. As you refine such filtering, you're practically refining your "trigger" conditions. (My usage of the word trigger here was not bound by the specifics of a scope trigger.)Software reversing is, most of the times, working with unknown trigger conditions that we must refine until we get the particular event we're looking for.

author: 2N3055
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2020, 12:06:23 pm
content: Well, a non-monotonic edge can most of the time be caught with rise/fall time trigger, because non-monotonic edge will result in anomalous 10/90% rise time...But that is just a side comment.I agree with tv84 in principle. Many people here list their experience and techniques used, and argue who is and what is right, but in the end it all drills down to what you do.There is a difference if you do R&D stuff, or you do repairs, or reverse engineer, or do production test...Also what you do, RF, hi or low speed digital, mixed signal, communications, all of the above...All of those will favor some instruments to others.I know one thing thou: If you can make single instrument fill more than one role, that is useful.It seems this instrument simply wants to be more universal instrument, hoping that customers will find new ways to use it....It also will be nice digitizer front end for Keysight analysis software (VSA for instance)..

author: snoopy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2020, 12:34:43 pm
content: Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on May 14, 2020, 03:55:46 pmYou just contradicted yourself and I have highlighted those contradictions in bold. I'm not sure what your agenda is here. You sound like some ex Tek employee who was shown the door long ago and have not got over it and so to get back at your ex employer you take any opportunity to slander their work anytime you can. Doesn't really help others looking for an objective point of viewcheers

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2020, 01:56:04 pm
content: The first page of this thread was fun, wasn't it?

author: jjoonathan
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2020, 03:21:23 pm
content: Does anyone know if the paper is out on the 10 bit 16GS/s ADC in the UXR and MXR?Actually, come to think of it, I'm not sure I've seen the Infiniium S ADC paper either. The last one I have in Zotero is the 90000 paper, "A 20 GSa/s 8b ADC with a 1 MB Memory in 0.18 mm CMOS". Or was the S series just that one (or two of them) configured for vertical interleaving?

author: eplpwr
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 16, 2020, 11:59:11 am
content: Quote from: Mr. Scram on May 15, 2020, 01:56:04 pmYes! There was a discussion about a newly released scope from Keysight with some quite interesting specs.

author: srce
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 16, 2020, 12:27:17 pm
content: Quote from: jjoonathan on May 15, 2020, 03:21:23 pmS series ADC was in 65nm, and 10bit.

author: jjoonathan
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 16, 2020, 02:10:39 pm
content: Aha! You're right -- I've tried tossing some of the parameters from the Infiniium S brochure and names from the 90000 paper into Google Scholar but haven't found the Infiniium S paper yet, so further leads would still be appreciated

author: srce
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2020, 12:37:38 pm
content: Quote from: mike1305 on April 28, 2020, 04:32:40 pmHmm. When I read this, I thought you just meant a single channel can't be viewed in both time domain and RTSA modes.But it seems when the scope is in RTSA mode, there is no time domain functionality at all. That's a great shame.Do you know if this is just a limitation of the current s/w or a fundamental h/w limitation?

author: jusaca
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 09, 2020, 09:21:55 am
content: Anything new about this scope? I was waiting for one or the other of our favourite youtubers to get a unit to show it off, but up to now there is no stuff on youtube (except for the offical Keysight video).

author: Sighound36
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 09, 2020, 05:19:57 pm
content: This video you may not have seen.https://www.dropbox.com/s/y55zv11mlson23d/MXR-Series%20vs.%20S-Series%20Demo%20Video.mp4?dl=0

author: jusaca
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 12, 2020, 10:53:56 am
content: Thanks, I really did not see that yet.

author: noreply
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 12, 2020, 12:32:34 pm
content: Quote from: Sighound36 on June 09, 2020, 05:19:57 pmI have toavoid this thread- its definitely not good for my health (I already have an addiction for the 'cheap' stuff) - but this puppy is in a league of its ownBe careful Sighound - you might not ever return to the 'normal’ worldEDIT: One way out is to become a Keysight product specialist - hopefully you will get this puppy to take home and show to potential 'addicts'

author: tv84
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 12, 2020, 12:59:10 pm
content: Quote from: noreply on June 12, 2020, 12:32:34 pmSighound is hybrid. He can take both the blue pill and the red one and still get back to our world!That video is amazing stuff at (almost) our fingertips!

author: NoisyBoy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 12, 2020, 07:29:36 pm
content: Thanks for sharing the video, as that is what I have been looking for. It is a scope truly worthy of the Keysight name and a great upgrade to the existing line.

author: Sighound36
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 12, 2020, 08:58:55 pm
content: Well chaps the are two of us here that will be having a home demo of this puppy next monthHowever I yet to be convinced until I give the scope a workout if I it passes muster I will takeb one for the home labI have identified a few items that could be an issue though the ENOB of 9 bits is a bit of selective specification which is already over twice the noise of the Wavepro with the same parameters.Where I can see this scope really making an impact is with the RTA bandwidth of upto 320Mhz the cost option here is £9k you can extend this upto the max bandwidth even if the scope is only 500Mhz you pay for a for a frequency extender that is a other 2K strictly not a real true RTA (dds) but no other scope has this featureThe amount of hardware acceleration in this unit is impressive everything except channel upgrades are software upgradeable que the code heads on hereStarting price is £18,800 for the 1/2 Ghz and £21k for the 1Ghz so pricing is very keen in this sector this is will sell no doubtWill be giving a good work out and a comparison or two however it looks decent.

author: tv84
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 12, 2020, 09:47:24 pm
content: Well, a 1 Tbps crunching machine should also add a nice power bill... or is it green?

author: Sighound36
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 13, 2020, 11:04:31 am
content: Quote from: tv84 on June 12, 2020, 09:47:24 pmPisch, nothing compared to a famous pair of audio power amplifiers domestic models that idled at 3.2Kw in full class 'a' EACH as they are mono-blocks and they are not even from the land of excess, but ScandinavianPersonally my lab is plenty warm enough in the summer thank youJoking aside it is a feat of electronic engineering hats off to the Danny Boganoff employers

author: fanOfeeDIY
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: June 14, 2020, 07:04:37 am
content: I started to revise the scopes chart so the charactristics of acquisition compartment will be easier to understand.https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/digital-oscilloscope-comparison-chart/Hoping the differences on Infiniium S-Series and MXR become clearer.

author: Eric_S
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 15, 2020, 05:53:23 pm
content: Quote from: Sighound36 on June 09, 2020, 05:19:57 pmHats off, I'll have a look!

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 15, 2020, 09:23:37 pm
content: I hope Shahriar gets to show us one. His videos are always great.

author: electrolust
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 26, 2020, 03:23:22 pm
content: Quote from: jjoonathan on May 02, 2020, 08:15:51 pmyes, keysight runs an ebay store. i buy all my stuff there.http://www.ebaystores.com/Keysight?_rdc=1

author: Sighound36
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 26, 2020, 03:47:12 pm
content: There a couple of us on EEV blog here who are due one of these units in the very near future pretty sure you will be kept up to date.

author: Zucca
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 27, 2020, 06:50:34 am
content: if you are bastard enough you will win onehere

author: srce
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 28, 2020, 03:45:26 pm
content: Any suggestions what to measure then?

author: Sighound36
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 28, 2020, 03:58:01 pm
content: I have a battery of tests for that unit next week

author: NoisyBoy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 28, 2020, 05:07:34 pm
content: I am looking forward to both of your findings and reviews.And thank you for putting it next to the S-Series for a size and screen brightness comparison. I hope the full HD screen makes a big difference in fine details as I had been bugging Daniel for a world class display on the scope without having to attach an external display.

author: 0culus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 28, 2020, 07:01:24 pm
content: Quote from: NoisyBoy on July 28, 2020, 05:07:34 pmIt would jack the price up even more, but a HiDPI ("retina" in apple speak) display on a scope would be the bee's knees.

author: Keysight DanielBogdanoff
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 28, 2020, 07:44:27 pm
content: I'm a little late to the party here, but I do believe we'll see something from Shahriar soon

author: filssavi
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 28, 2020, 07:57:17 pm
content: Quote from: Keysight DanielBogdanoff on July 28, 2020, 07:44:27 pmBetter late than never

author: lukier
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 28, 2020, 10:09:58 pm
content: Quote from: Keysight DanielBogdanoff on July 28, 2020, 07:44:27 pmplease let it be not just the FFT function for an hourscopes nowadays have so many functions for an embedded engineer, protocol decoding, power analysis, compliance testing, advanced triggers, no need to turn a scope into a poor SA(wonder if other forum members share my sentiment, how often do you use FFT on the scope?)

author: jjoonathan
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 28, 2020, 10:18:38 pm
content: FFT go brrrrrSeriously though, it depends 100% on your application. If you're debugging hopping PLLS or using the scope like a wideband signal-analyzer, you're going to spend a lot of time with FFTs. If you're tracing SPI busses and switching supplies, probably not.I look forward to Shahriar's review, especially with that preselector-hacked-into-a-postselector he put together for ADC stress-testing, but I certainly wouldn't mind seeing people with differently flavored applications give it a spin.

author: lukier
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 28, 2020, 10:43:14 pm
content: Quote from: jjoonathan on July 28, 2020, 10:18:38 pmQuote from: jjoonathan on July 28, 2020, 10:18:38 pmHence why I was wondering what most people use their scope for and if it is FFT functionQuote from: jjoonathan on July 28, 2020, 10:18:38 pmWouldn't you be better off with proper RF gear for such tasks, like SA/RTSA? (disclaimer: RF noob here)Quote from: jjoonathan on July 28, 2020, 10:18:38 pmWell these particular things rarely require > 1 GHz scopes, but there are other things that embedded developers have to tackle more and more often like modern high speed serial buses. For example in my field it would be something like debugging MIPI CSI link, which involves both signal analysis (eye diagram etc) and protocol decoding, maybe compliance testing and one would probably also have I2C decoder on other channels, showing the control commands to the sensor. This kind of stuff.

author: jjoonathan
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 28, 2020, 11:30:59 pm
content: QuoteYeah, but oscilloscope bandwidth is wider, cheaper, you get four channels (8 on the MXR!), and you can time-correlate with baseband signals. Even on the fancy R&S signal analyzers, if you need GHz of real time bandwidth, the supported solution is to use the signal analyzer as a preselector + downconverter and then use one of their scopes for the final acquisition/analysis.The big specification where oscilloscopes still don't compete with spectrum analyzers is spurious performance. That's why Shahriar is so interested in evaluating oscilloscopes on that front: he's answering the question "what can you get away with on an oscilloscope?"QuoteYep, I didn't mean to belittle other applications. Substitute in MIPI, USB, or PCIe as appropriate

author: Sal Ammoniac
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 29, 2020, 12:22:23 am
content: $108,000 for a scope? At least it has some heft to it. How about a single chip for $115,000?https://www.digikey.com/products/en?keywords=122-xcvu47p-3fsvh2892e-nd

author: Eric_S
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 29, 2020, 10:06:20 am
content: FPGA?* clicks link *FPGA.

author: srce
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 29, 2020, 10:58:17 am
content: Quote from: NoisyBoy on July 28, 2020, 05:07:34 pmWell, the higher resolution display was one of the features I was most interested in, as the S-series, IMO, can be quite cramped when you have several measurements at once.Unfortunately, I'm a little bit disappointed. It seems they've scaled the icons and fonts so that they are the same physical size, meaning that it feels just as cramped and I can't see a way to change it.In the attached pic, I've highlighted in red some of what I consider to be wasted vertical space. The sub-window headers could just be single lines with the docking controls accessible via a menu. The menu bar at the top seems to be bigger that on the S-series because of the addition of the green "Scope" button and the massive font used. If you can read the font used for the axis' labels, it's probably not necessary to have some of the other fonts (Menu and channel settings) twice as large. Comparing the size of the text in the two orange circles, the top size is perfectly readable.) The time/vertical measurement palette could go in to some of the empty space as well, rather than eating in to the horizontal display for the signals, etc.This might sound like nit picking, but look at the picture and it's only about half the display for the signals. Compare that to the Tek MSO 5/6 series, where the UI seems much less intrusive, IMO.Show us more of those beautiful signals, pleaseedit: Maybe they've made them so big to support touch operation?

author: Zucca
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 29, 2020, 11:06:23 am
content: Quote from: srce on July 28, 2020, 03:45:26 pmTest how noisy the Riglol devices on the bottom are

author: srce
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 29, 2020, 01:22:57 pm
content: Quote from: lukier on July 28, 2020, 10:09:58 pmWell, the RTSA mode with 400k overlapped FFT/s is one of the new features of this scope. So...In RTSA mode, you can:Set Span to 40/80/160/320MHz (Giving a fixed corresponding RBW of 18.31/36.62/73.24/146.6kHz).Centre Frequency can be set from 0Hz to 6.3GHz, in steps of 6.25MHz.Reference level can be set from -38dBm to 36dBm.The only measurements you appear to be able to make, is by manually placing X/Y markers.No peak search or peak table.No waterfall or spectrogram.You can't save a waveform to memory or disk.There appears to be no way to zoom in.In RTSA mode, you can only view the real-time spectrum. You can't view the corresponding time domain signal.Frequency mask triggering doesn't seem to work. Set up a mask to insect, press single and it immediately goes to stop without capturing anything??One nice thing you can't do on a spectrum analyser, is that you can capture simultaneously on different channels with different centre frequencies on each. See attached GIF with a 10MHz clock on one channel and packet transfer on another.I tried to measure the smallest signal it could see above the noise floor. So I set reference to -38dBm and then fed in a signal from a signal generator. If you set the Display scale to 10dB/division, you can just make out a tone at about -120dBm (indicated on my sig gen).Strangely, if you set the scale to 5dB/division, the signal disappears off the bottom of the screen, and there doesn't appear to be a way add an offset to make it visible.Setting the sig gen to -110dBm results in a signal on the scope as -107dBm.You can then increase the signal power to -35dBm before the ADC clips. So 85dB = ~14bits.

author: tv84
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 29, 2020, 01:46:23 pm
content: This forum is becoming UNUSABLEto keep track of a conversation because of the attached image problems!!!Once again I can't differentiate the images posted by srce...

author: Sighound36
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 29, 2020, 03:25:24 pm
content: I wonder if this is a pre production unit, if I recall in the video I posted pretty sure some of the FFT features that SCRE commented about were there?Would also suggest that like any new piece of equipment the beta testers can not take everything nto account hopefully Keysight will rectify this.

author: srce
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 29, 2020, 03:32:26 pm
content: Quote from: Sighound36 on July 29, 2020, 03:25:24 pmThey are there for the regular FFT (i.e. the math operation in Scope mode), but they aren't supported in the RTSA mode or DDC mode (which is nothing like as good as the Tek, which can do mixed freq & time domain).Incidentally, the regular FFT doesn't appear to have much acceleration over the S-series, at least for large amounts of data. E.g. if I do a ~16Mpoint FFT, there's only a small speed increase.

author: Sighound36
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 29, 2020, 04:39:02 pm
content: Interesting...........

author: lukier
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 29, 2020, 04:47:18 pm
content: Quote from: srce on July 29, 2020, 01:22:57 pmMaybe you are right and in this particular MXR scenario it makes sense. It is just every SignalPath scope review video is just FFT, mostly playing with some PLL, gets quite old and quickly too if ones scope usage pattern is anything but FFT. When Dave was reviewing some beast of a scope he made some effort to show USB 3.0, diff probing, eye diagrams etc. IMHO much more relevant stuff.

author: jjoonathan
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 29, 2020, 05:49:33 pm
content: https://youtu.be/dx596o8t_TY?t=1711

author: lukier
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 29, 2020, 06:58:58 pm
content: Quote from: jjoonathan on July 29, 2020, 05:49:33 pmYeah I know this fragment, scroll some minutes further and it is FFT againThis was also 7 years ago. Another video that is non-FFT is the overview video (not the subsequent full one, that is FFT only too) of the MSO5 (persistence, triggers, decoding etc), that was nice.IMHO mikeselectricstuff has the best scope reviews, tries to put them through their paces, checks most functions & interfaces + useful tips on usage.

author: Sighound36
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 30, 2020, 09:21:53 am
content: SRCEDoes the loan unit have the phase noise measurement app installed?

author: srce
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 31, 2020, 07:34:57 pm
content: Quote from: Sighound36 on July 30, 2020, 09:21:53 amYep - appears to be fully loaded

author: Sighound36
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 01, 2020, 04:47:23 pm
content: The Eagle has landed more to come......

author: Sighound36
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 04, 2020, 02:20:36 pm
content: Well day three with the MXR, some teasers for you.The MXR is big solid beast, tank like construction and it's got significant processing power. need pi computing from nth to 35th power, walk in the park. Could be why it swallows 650W of powerTemperature on the side vents around 60C with big ass fan(s) going full tilt, noisy at best.Lots more to follow have some power supplies meas to make with this new Keysight machine now

author: 0culus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2020, 02:12:53 am
content: Can you send it to me when you're done?

author: snoopy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2020, 11:16:59 am
content: Quote from: Sighound36 on August 04, 2020, 02:20:36 pmIs this yours or a demo unit ??

author: Sighound36
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2020, 12:40:36 pm
content: Hi SnoopyThe unit is a demo loaner and it has an issue so it is being returned for investigation.More later....................

author: Sighound36
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2020, 07:11:54 pm
content: Have been getting to know the MXR respectably well since the weekend, though I have had a few niggles especially with noise floor consistency.The MXR is big heavy beast and sits firmly on the bench and totally intimidates the vast majority of the rest of my bench equipment. If it could talk 'If you are hard enough mate' would be its strap line.Not having used a keysight GUI for a while it has not taken to long to reacquaint myself with its workings.Drop down menu's are nice and simple, set wizards are good touch, the vertical and time measurement bar on the left hand side is nice touch and simply slides away when not required.Probe quality is very good and locks with a reassuring clunk.Boot time around the 2.20 mark, around 30 seconds slower than the R&S RTO and Lecroy Wavepro series BUT significantly faster than the Tek 6 range at 5.45 minutes (rumoured to be a new model in the offing but currently delayed).Solidly constructed and sporting eight channels the MXR makes judicious use of my main diagnostic and research area (some relocation of shelving required if this body builder of a scope is going to reside in personal lab).Right off the bat the first thing that grabs you is noise this machine makes, it is seriously loud. Think early 90's desktop PC during the summer. While I appreciate there is a lot of hardware in this Challenger tank chassis its does make a big noise (Rigol mso5000 owners can smile in the knowledge an MXR would out drag them comprehensively in a sound off).All this hardware does generate quite a bit of heat, the lower portion of the screen after a couple of hours in a well ventilated room reaches 52C. The side of the scope where all the connectivity is situated (and the IEC) does climb to around 64C even with the copious amount of air that scope moves to cool its Microsoft server like processing ability.The logic probe is sited on the right hand side (due to the lack of front panel space taken up by the eight channels) So the probe cable has to travel through 90 degrees. Trade off from the large processing ability. RTSA thus far hummmmmmmm........... basic at best.This is brief write up at the moment due the unit having 'issues' and is being returned to Keysight UK for investigation, obviously the Sighound ability to throw things out of whack has struck again.Some screen images of the power supply meas I did yesterday plus some FFT and basic eye images. Last image is of the noise floor at Keysight own settings to achieve the 9 bits of ENOB er its some way off, hence the unit being returned for investigation.Keysight have been thoroughly professional in their handling of this hiccup and I will be receiving a full loaded and correctly functioning unit next week. It is how a problem is dealt with which tells you great deal about the company ethics and working practices so big thumbs up for Keysight UK on this matterThe images are labelled as to the relevant measurements.The last image is of the noise floor measured @ 20Mhz hardware BW plus 16bits of SW filter engaged @ 1mv per div and 200ps HTB claimed is 45uv as you can see it it somewhat off that figure, see explanation above.

author: srce
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 05, 2020, 08:44:02 pm
content: Noise measured as 45uV on mine under those conditions. Depending on settings, it was a little better or worse than my S series. But they don't have identical bw/sample rates above 1ghz, so cant always compare directly.

author: snoopy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 06, 2020, 02:23:43 am
content: Is it just a bolt-on RTSA or does it integrate with the time domain ?

author: srce
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 06, 2020, 06:57:10 am
content: Quote from: snoopy on August 06, 2020, 02:23:43 amSeparate mode, unfortunately.

author: snoopy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 06, 2020, 09:05:03 am
content: Quote from: srce on August 06, 2020, 06:57:10 amThen not a mixed domain like the Tek ??

author: Sighound36
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 06, 2020, 09:32:24 am
content: Quote from: snoopy on August 06, 2020, 09:05:03 amNot yet

author: Sighound36
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 13, 2020, 04:16:18 pm
content: Now in possession of a fully working and optioned up (without Tv84? total sacrilege) A big thank you to Keysight's UXR/MXR applications engineer Jason for his time yesterday and travelling as far as he did in the heat, while going thoroughly through the MXR a top chap indeed.Yesterday was ridiculously hot in the lab and the MXR being the beast of a mobile server bank did contribute in no small way to the 38C in the there. So one did the British thing and retired to a less oppressive environment for refreshments until later in the evening when the thermometer descended to a more manageable 24C.Long chat with Justin revealed that the MXR has only one asic per bank of 4 channels (not sure why but I was convinced it was one per channel, must be the heat)Also due in the not to distance future a convergence of Keysight OS firmware, currently the infiniium higher range scopes S series and above use one style of Keysight OS, the UXR another and now the MXR its own as well. Plans to deliver a single platform OS for these three ranges was sheduled earlier in the year but due to Covid 19 this has been put back, now possibly Xmas for this to happen? Interesting no plans to cull the S series at the moment either.Today the MXR has been getting a work out and has been fairing well, tomorrow its gets serious, the Lecroy Wavepro is appearing in the blue corner with gum shield and a rather fetching pair of knee length lace up boots andsome Nigel Benn style shortsSeconds out.........................

author: MarkL
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 13, 2020, 08:45:19 pm
content: Quote from: Sighound36 on August 13, 2020, 04:16:18 pmDo you know if this new "single platform OS" is still ms windows, or is it something other than windows based?

author: Keysight DanielBogdanoff
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: August 13, 2020, 11:24:22 pm
content: Quote from: MarkL on August 13, 2020, 08:45:19 pmWindows. I expect most major vendors will be windows based for the near + mid future. Acceptable levels of security, supportability and stability are the main drivers.

author: Sighound36
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 14, 2020, 06:48:56 am
content: Thank you for the clarification DannyWhile the temperature is now a very manageable 21C time to return to the matter in hand today.A day of testing for a new power supply design we are finalizing we feel would be a good start for the MXR's ability to show it's mettle while allowing us to use the device without melting to much in the lab today!I suspect this is the first time these two heavy hitters of the upper registrars of the scope world have faced off so in the red corner the beast of Bogdanoff with enough heat generation to melt a polar icecap and processing ability to rival a start up AI company takes on, in the blue corner the Chestnut Ridge Rumbler with its slick ultra low noise floor footwork, fluid OS, vast array of tools and number crunching prowess.Going to be a long and interesting day I feel

author: 2N3055
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 14, 2020, 09:00:36 am
content: Quote from: Sighound36 on August 14, 2020, 06:48:56 amLOL... Brick Top would be proud....

author: Sighound36
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 14, 2020, 04:17:32 pm
content: Just came out for air, its getting dirty in there I need a breatherIt's scopes Jim, but not as we know itBack in the ring to take another swing but first just popping out for one of these essential items plus a pair of hearing protection devices.

author: Sighound36
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 16, 2020, 05:10:12 pm
content: Well its all over now, just finished mopping up the blood, sweat and tears not so surprising result, but you will have to wait for the prize giving until tomorrow, I need some down time to recover from this ordeal.Also require some paracetamol for the headache I need to nurse

author: NoisyBoy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 17, 2020, 03:19:53 am
content: Looking forward to your reviews and comparison.Thank you so much for spending your precious time to help those of us who are on the fence.

author: snoopy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 17, 2020, 01:21:32 pm
content: I think the MDO feature of the Tek scopes is missing on these two competing scopes which would be a deal breaker for me if I was going to spend this sort of coin. Just saying

author: srce
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 17, 2020, 01:30:38 pm
content: Quote from: snoopy on August 17, 2020, 01:21:32 pmYep.

author: Sighound36
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 17, 2020, 03:39:59 pm
content: Quote from: snoopy on August 17, 2020, 01:21:32 pmSnoopy I feel if a new purchase was considered you have a very valid point concerning the spectrum analysis features of this product.For myself I do not require to have the DDC style feature attached to the scope, for others potential purchasers as you say could very well be a deal breaker.

author: snoopy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 18, 2020, 01:16:21 am
content: Quote from: Sighound36 on August 17, 2020, 03:39:59 pmIf you are doing switch mode power supply design there may come a time where you really need this feature. Just sayingcheers

author: tv84
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 19, 2020, 06:47:18 pm
content: @Sighound, we're still waiting for your MXR final review or head-to-head with the LeCroy. From all I've read from you i get the impression that the MXR must have been approved only by NASA to be used on launchpads... where a few ºC or dB more don't make much difference.

author: KE5FX
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 19, 2020, 07:13:39 pm
content: Quote from: snoopy on August 18, 2020, 01:16:21 amHard to imagine the scope's FFT function wouldn't be good enough for that. What does a DDC do for you there?

author: Sighound36
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 19, 2020, 07:19:05 pm
content: Fear not Tv84 its here now, just taken a while to compose!This review has taken a lot longer than first anticipated, not just because of the first unit failure and resultant time periods but also really knowing how to characterize this piece as well.The MXR not just for myself, is one of the most hotly anticipated new pieces of test equipment for quite some time. The MXR has really has caught the imagination of those who work within all aspects the EE industry and beyond. I mean a scope of this class that has real processing power with the real time analysis capability plus a large and useful options tools box including VSA and DDC so appetites were well and truly wet!Expectations are high especially with Keysight ‘s own comparison video against their S series range of quality scopes.This piece is purely about how I found the MXR in the circumstances that I would use this device in around my daily work routine and practices. I have no affiliation to any of the manufacturers that are mentioned in this feedback article.The replacement MXR that Keysight kindly brought out to myself by one of the their application engineers was a ‘fully leaded model’ as we say in these parts, in that it came with the full bandwidth, all current available options, stock probes plus one active Ghz probe, a 100Mhz 30 amp active current probe plus a 1.4Kva high voltage differential probe all top quality units. All eight analogue channels in operation plus sixteen digital channels and matching probes plus a supplied keyboard and mouse.A brief recap, it’s big as in bench dominating large, very Abraham’s tank like construction, purposeful look and feel to the scope, decent 15.6” HD screen plus separate HDMI output for those wishing to use an external screen.The 8 channel version uses 650 watts of power and does generate a fairly significant amount of heat (I cannot be sure as I did not take this one apart! but it may have a linear power supply to fed that bank of FPGA's) this may explain the noise this scope makes during operation (initial start up is just like jet liner taking off then it settles back to a cruising speed!) which depending on your lab’s policy and construction could have a major say on purchasing a unit.Even when the unit was just idling it generated a minimum of 65dB at 24 inches or 60cm for our EU friends climbing to 72dB when working the unit hard. All sound measurements were taken using ‘a’ weighting and fast response on a trusty Radio-shack SPL meter. Videos will be linked below. As a comparison I took a reading at closer range of the Keysight power supply, GW Instek DC load and Keithley DMM65000 all running together and that just about made 57dB using the same settings on the SPL meter.So you can breathe a sigh of relief this is not going to be a really long review piece as the decision was made quite early on in the evaluation process.One item I wish to point out. The original loan unit was faulty so my initial noise floor measurements were not valid and were way off. The replacement unit I am happy to report did meet it all its quoted noise floor specifications at all of the various frequencies I measured image of the lowest noise floor @ 20Mhz/full 16 bits/1mv VTB/200ps HTB around 41uv.Probes engage with a quality ‘clunk’ and the fit, finish and operation of the knobs are of a high quality feel and action.I did perform a wide verity of measurements and tests with the MXR, except VSA which by the time the schedule was reached I really was at the point with the noise that I had decided enough was enough.The MXR promises the ability to have eight instruments contained within one simple heavyweight chassis:-• Logic Analyzer• Protocol Analyzer• DVM• Counter• Real-time Spectrum Analyzer• Bode Plotter• Waveform GeneratorPlus the oscilloscope function itself, so this unit can be a powerful diagnostic tool for any well appointed lab and could cut down on the amount of physical boxes by a decent amount.The big feature for many EE’s is the ability to have a real time spectrum analyzer built in to the MXR, coupled with the very attractive potential 320 MHz RT band width. This RTBW is normally reserved for the current exotic SA’s from R&S and Keysight which cost fairly significant numbers to purchase!So a big feature rich scope, with RTSA and quality apps for many applications will be a desirable draw I suspect for many an SME’s plus the odd up market hobbyist.One nice touch Keysight have added is the frequency extender option, so even if you only have a 1/2Ghz BW scope you can purchase the frequency extender to reach the full 6.3Ghz of the scope for FFT/DDC/RTSA (Bandwidth ranges are extra cost for the RTSA, so the basic 40Mhz is standard if you wish for the 320Mhz BW. This will also enable the DDC to have a 2Ghz span as well. Then you will have to put your hand in your pocket to the tune of £8.5K.Cost wise (UK) a 1Ghz 4 channel version is £20,800, Low Speed Protocol Decode/TriggerSoftware (I2C, SPI, RS232, I2S, JTAG ..) £2,500 and EZJIT is £4200. £year extended warranty £911 Three year calibration plan £985 so £37,800 + vatPricing compared to the current opposition in the class of scopes is very competitive and I am sure will shake up the market in this area.To business, so far I have spent over thirty quality hours with the MXR, so I feel I am fairly well acquainted with its working methodology. I will admit the OS took a while to grasp as I use Lecroy and Rigol on a pretty much daily basis. I find the Keysight OS to be easier to use than both the current Tektronix 5/6 series and R&S RTO models.However I totally understand that this is a personal issue and other users may well feel different, that said the Lecroy X-stream OS is so fluid and natural to use for myself it puts all the others in the shade.Back to the MXR, the selection of basic functions is simple and easy to fathom after a couple of hours (with the amount of apps installed some are more complex than others especially the jitter/clocks and phase noise)Some of the options involve further drop down menus which ‘seat’ on top of the current open window, and if you are using the set up wizards (rather good they are too in most areas) then it can get quite cluttered on the main viewing panel. Too much distraction caused from the main measurement event for me.Clean and fluid menus and options I feel are a more intelligent way to run the OS. Separate measurement windows for DVM/Frequency counter or my measurements panel (quick set of basic meas, nice touch) These appear as blue coloured panes which you have to ‘dock or float’ and can shrink and resize in a traditional windows fashions. However what a pain to close them, pretty much all the other manufacturers would just have an ‘x’ in the top right hand side window, no you have to enter each app and un-tick a box to lose that particular measurement or display pane. Quite a few times I just hit factory default set up to clear it all (though this didn’t always work!) Yes a small niggle but a frustrating one.Now wave form screen speed, hum...... yes this was quite a surprise as in it was slow, given the hype around the hardware acceleration this beastie has I was disappointed.For example I was looking at the ac wave form during power analysis and was out to just two complete waveforms on the display and wished to increase the HTB out to view at least 20 wave forms, the screen pauses with a few waveforms bunching up then a 4 or five seconds later it catches up and displays the rest of the waveforms for the new HTB. This happened every time I initiated this. But also when look at clock signals and wishing to zoom in to allow a full FFT scan, again it ‘paused’ for a few seconds before catching up and displaying the correct HTB rate.Now maybe this may have something to do with the auto scale timing, it could take up to 16 seconds to auto scale! Yesterday on some serial data analysis I was examining, consistently taking around 6-8 seconds is far too long to acquire a signal imho.The hardware acceleration is currently fixed on NRZ and unknown signal acquisition suspect more will follow with the FW updates that will coming thick and fast on this MXR.The FFT feature on the MXR is fine, pretty fast and accurate nothing to write home about, but then as with many scopes FFTs are adequate and can help for tracing those spurious harmonics down.Really not going make any other comments on the DDC or RTSA that SCRE has not commented on already other than make the observation of ‘basic at best uninspiring and almost not worth the effort currently’As much as it pains me to admit this Tek DDC and FFT ability on its equivalent 6 series is like comparing a Bond Bug attempting the Paris Dakar rally with 4 litres of pump piss and a spare 185/60/14 remoulds (retreads for the US chaps here) with two snow chains fitted. To a full blown World class rally car, with full team support and a £5m budget for the event. It’s embarrassing at this level of performance and cost of equipment.The jitter app is comprehensive and has many options that will help you debug your designs thoroughly again the set wizards are decent quality app, still not sure on the screen format lay out, tried several screen layouts (nice drop down menu just for this function) I just didn’t get on with scope function, the AE engineer who’s unit I was kindly loaded also went into to detail with these options, though he still had to work around it as well.The Real time eye app again a quality app, really well thought out and for myself extremely useful, screen layout better for this (see images below even through in an FFT for good measure).Really was going to produce a real tomb on this scope originally; however quite early on in the evaluation it was obvious to myself this MXR is only partly finished. So honestly at the moment I do not feel all the effort is worthwhile.These are my observations relating to this Keysight projectI would like to state for the record M’Lud I really wanted to fall in love with the scope so much, it’s build up and promised performance were salivating to quite a few EE’s including myself. Ultimately it just has not delivered as of yet.From my perspective this project has serious potential to really cause a big stir in this area of the scope marketplace, massive HW, major flexibility, 8 channels (though 4 channels should be quieter the AE has mentioned and the spec’s say ‘only 450 watts power consumption’) options for pretty much all possible applications you would require, RTSA upto 320 Mhz BW, big screen all software upgrade-able except channel expansion plus a very attractive price. What’s not to like?In the here and now it feels like the bean counters have said, ‘Hey you guys this project has had two years and ‘x’ millions of $ of R&D’ now we want to see some payback. Get it out on the market a.s.a.p.This potentially ground breaking scope has been released far to early and realistically required maybe another 3-4 months of hard core beta testing and programming glitches iron outs and feature sets already installed before the launch was made.Now I am aware with a machine like this is complex (or any scope of this calibre) the FW will have issues fact of life totally understand this situation. However when the AE is asking what features would I like on the scope to help me make a positive purchase decision I do feel this reaffirms my thoughts on being released to early.Yes it is great that company staff are asking these fundamental questions indeed, however these features should have been already installed especially with the RTSA and DDC which was the main point marketing UCP of this MXR product.I would like to say this is not a hatchet job in any way just my findings with the experience I have gained with this device, I have no doubt in six months all of these glitches and the new features will be proudly accessible and working to a 95% capability and all of this review will be long forgotten.Personally if the project was allowed to run it indented course I would suspect an MXR would be sitting on my personal bench in the very near future.Currently no plans for that to happen, The Lecroy Wavepro does not have competitor in the areas I really need to specialize in. Others may feel different totally understand this.End of term (semester for our US cousins) report, fair start to the school year, shows great promise and top flight ability in brief glimpses. Must improve next term B-Last Friday a colleague came over to check out the MXR while we were testing some power regulators, after 30 minutes he remarked ' turn that thing off I cannot think with it on'The most telling point for myself is this, I really did not wish to switch on the MXR and use it in it's current state. You have to be comfortable will all of your test equipment to get the best out of it imho. If you feel it is chore to use it, then like anything you tend to leave it alone.The last few images demonstrate the size of the MXR against a Lecroy HDO6000A and one of those cracking little Micsic android hand held scopes.One for the the Lecroy Wavepro 8084 scope set to 20Mhz HW bandwidth, ERES switched to 3 bits on a 50 ohm open port. 19.75uv and the finial image of a HDP6000A 1Ghz model set to the same settings as the bigger brother the Wavepro 13.3uvSorry a couple of other observations I missed in the above:-Positioning of both the IEC socket and digital probe socket, due to the very large power supply they are on the right hand side of the unit and tucked back on itself for the logic probe. Not ideal placement but due to the constraints of the psu I suspect they were very few places to locate them.

author: tv84
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 19, 2020, 08:33:07 pm
content: @Sighound, with all the glitches ironed outwould you still be willing to useit with all the sound noise it creates? Or you find it essential that KS also improves that?

author: snoopy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 20, 2020, 02:29:26 am
content: Quote from: KE5FX on August 19, 2020, 07:13:39 pmMaybe see if there are any spurious oscillations as the supply starts up or shuts down which may become an issue when the supply is running normally. No doubt sighound will be using this for other apps other than supply designcheers

author: KaneTW
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 20, 2020, 03:59:13 am
content: Wow, shame the DDC/RTSA is crap, and the noise is a killer for me.

author: Sighound36
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 20, 2020, 10:10:16 am
content: Quote from: tv84 on August 19, 2020, 08:33:07 pmMorning Tv84Very good question, also as promised some video's of the MXR in action plus a comparison of three of the home lab bench instruments running simultaneously plus one of the Rigol MSO8000 noise level as well.Back to your question, the instruments I current use for myself are more accurate, yes I do have more boxes however they are doing a very fine job and the itch the MXR was causing has disappeared.Instead of the MXR gracing this lab I would suggest now q very good possibility of a DC power analyzer and a quality LCR impedance device will residing in there in the not to distant future.https://www.dropbox.com/s/mae25p2mfgi5vs7/More%20MXR%20action.mp4?dl=0https://www.dropbox.com/s/pvey5rv2msh8z98/Three%20instrument%20combined%20noise.mp4?dl=0https://www.dropbox.com/s/5wzye594pw813ui/MXR_ticking%20over.mp4?dl=0https://www.dropbox.com/s/jp3o5miaqu92d54/Rigol%20MSO8000%20noise.mp4?dl=0

author: tv84
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 20, 2020, 01:19:18 pm
content: One of the things I still cherish are my ears! I would never buy such a thing. That looks like a data center equipment, not a workbench one!They better think in another way of cooling that thing!

author: Sighound36
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 20, 2020, 01:33:24 pm
content: I have to say that was lowest noise level that I recorded when you really start to use it it does get louder and kicks in with afterburner type whine

author: snoopy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 21, 2020, 01:46:22 am
content: Quote from: tv84 on August 20, 2020, 01:19:18 pmNo problems with theseAlso cures sleep apnoea in your partner

author: snoopy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 21, 2020, 01:50:59 am
content: Quote from: Sighound36 on August 20, 2020, 10:10:16 amBecause this scope has a big screen you could locate it away from you and still view it okThat should cut the noise down

author: udhay_cit
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: November 28, 2020, 01:54:43 pm
content: or can be connect it to an external monitor and stay away short time