12 GHZ USB Sampling Oscilloscope from Pico Technology

Timebase stability, accuracy, and a sampling interval of 200 fs allow timing characterization of jitter in the most demanding applications. The ability to trigger on high frequencies up to 10 GHz allows measurements on microwave components with extremely fast date rates.

With excellent measurement repeatability, exceptional vertical resolution (16 bits) and fast display update rate, the PicoScope 9201 is a powerful measurement tool for semiconductor testing, TDR characterization of circuit boards, IC packages and cables, and high-speed digital data communications.

Data acquisition and measurement analysis are performed in parallel, enabling the instrument to achieve outstanding measurement throughput. The instruments provide fast acquisition speed up to 200 kS/s and waveform performance analysis with automated direct or statistical measurements on both single-valued signals (sine-wave, pulse, impulse) and multi-valued signals (NRZ, RZ). Markers and histograms, math and FFT analysis, colour-graded display, parametric limit testing, eye diagrams and mask template testing can be used independently or in concert.

Accurate eye-diagram analysis for NRZ and RZ signal types is essential for characterizing the quality of electrical and optical transmitters to beyond 7 Gb/s. The PicoScope 9201 was designed specifically for the complex task of analyzing digital communications waveforms. Compliance mask and parametric testing no longer require a complicated sequence of setups and configurations. The important measurements you need are right at your fingertips, including industry-standard mask testing with built-in margin analysis, extinction ratio measurements with improved accuracy and repeatability, automatic eye measurements - crossing %, eye height and width, one and zero levels, jitter, rise and fall times - and more. In addition, mask testing of SDH/SONET, Fibre Channel, Ethernet and other standards simplifies compliance testing. A full colour display helps you to discriminate waveform details. A colour-graded display mode adds a third dimension - sample density - to your signal acquisitions and analysis.

At less than half the price of a traditional bench-top instrument, with its small size (170 x 255 x 40 mm) and light weight (1 kg), the portable PicoScope 9201 offers the widest range of measurements and waveform processing capabilities of any multi-gigahertz PC Oscilloscope. It can be connected to the USB port of any Windows laptop or desktop PC.

Alan Tong, Managing Director of Pico Technology, commented: “The PicoScope 9201 really shows the benefit of Pico’s approach to test and measurement. We have taken our understanding of low-cost PC Oscilloscopes and applied it to a high-end, specialised instrument, and the result is a fully specified sampling scope that’s within the budget of most engineering and test departments.”