A test and measurement instrument, comprising: a sampler component configured to receive a signal under test; a plurality of analog-to-digital converters ADCs operationally coupled to the sampler component and configured to produce digitized samples of the signal under test; a time-interleaved acquisition system including a plurality of parallel distributed acquisition components configured in an interleaved chain, each distributed acquisition component being operationally coupled to at least one of the ADCs and configured to receive a time-interleaved portion of the digitized samples, each distributed acquisition component including: an acquisition digital down-conversion DDC section having an interleaved numerically-controlled oscillator NCO for decimating the time-interleaved portion of the digitized samples; and an RF trigger finite impulse response FIR filter configured to receive and filter the decimated samples from the acquisition DDC section; and a last distributed acquisition component associated with the interleaved chain of distributed acquisition components configured to receive a recombined coherent waveform including the decimated and filtered samples, wherein the last distributed acquisition component includes an RF trigger data convert section that is configured to convert the decimated samples of the recombined waveform into one or more of an amplitude, phase, frequency, in-phase I, and quadrature Q waveform, wherein: each of the distributed acquisition components includes an RF trigger DDC section coupled to the acquisition DDC section, wherein the RF trigger DDC section is configured to shift the center frequency of the digitized samples. a sampler component configured to receive a signal under test; a plurality of analog-to-digital converters ADCs operationally coupled to the sampler component and configured to produce digitized samples of the signal under test; a time-interleaved acquisition system including a plurality of parallel distributed acquisition components configured in an interleaved chain, each distributed acquisition component being operationally coupled to at least one of the ADCs and configured to receive a time-interleaved portion of the digitized samples, each distributed acquisition component including: an acquisition digital down-conversion DDC section having an interleaved numerically-controlled oscillator NCO for decimating the time-interleaved portion of the digitized samples; and an RF trigger finite impulse response FIR filter configured to receive and filter the decimated samples from the acquisition DDC section; and an acquisition digital down-conversion DDC section having an interleaved numerically-controlled oscillator NCO for decimating the time-interleaved portion of the digitized samples; and an RF trigger finite impulse response FIR filter configured to receive and filter the decimated samples from the acquisition DDC section; and a last distributed acquisition component associated with the interleaved chain of distributed acquisition components configured to receive a recombined coherent waveform including the decimated and filtered samples, wherein the last distributed acquisition component includes an RF trigger data convert section that is configured to convert the decimated samples of the recombined waveform into one or more of an amplitude, phase, frequency, in-phase I, and quadrature Q waveform, wherein: each of the distributed acquisition components includes an RF trigger DDC section coupled to the acquisition DDC section, wherein the RF trigger DDC section is configured to shift the center frequency of the digitized samples.