Oscilloscope family upgrades with new UI, larger display

“It is the first member of the next generation of oscilloscopes with new corporate branding, a new user interface and front panel layout,” announced Dr. Tim Paasch-Colberg, Product Manager, Oscilloscopes at Rohde & Schwarz. “It is the best scope for applications up to 6GHz,” he claimed. There six different bandwidth models ranging from 600MHz to 6GHz.

The user interface has been simplified after customer comments about “a steep learning curve” on previous instruments enabling increased productivity.

Front panel buttons are now all set to the right of the oscilloscope and calls for a larger display have been answered with a 15.6-inch screen with capacitive touch which maximises the waveform area so that users can see what they are measuring. Signals can be dragged and dropped to different parts of the screen with the R&S SmartGrid. The app cockpit provides access to all of the oscilloscope's applications with a single tap.

Sample rate is 20 Gsample/s. The developers of the new R&S RTO6 have implemented an architecture with a dedicated ASIC for optimised signal processing that delivers an acquisition rate of up to one million waveforms per second – “we make fast oscilloscopes,” remarks Passch-Colberg.

This allows users to reliably detect even sporadic signal faults.

A low-noise frontend and single-core A/D converters with extremely small linearity errors achieve excellent signal integrity with a spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) of 65 dBc and a 9.4 ENOB. This allows users to capture all signal details with maximum precision.

Even more signal details can be revealed using the high definition (HD) mode.

This increases the vertical resolution of the R&S RTO6 oscilloscopes up to 16 bit with digital filtering, resulting in sharper waveforms and less noise. This filtered 16-bit signal is also used by the patented digital trigger system from Rohde & Schwarz. This allows the R&S RTO6 to achieve unprecedented trigger sensitivity and the capability to isolate even the smallest signal details.

In addition, the R&S RTO6 has several features that provide users with quick results. Mask tests, which users can set up with simple touch gestures, allow signal anomalies to be easily identified within defined tolerance limits. Thanks to the unique zone trigger, events can be graphically isolated in both the time and frequency domain.

With a standard acquisition memory of 200 Mpts and an optional 2 Gpts per channel, the R&S RTO6 can analyse long pulse and protocol sequences without difficulties. The constantly enabled history mode also allows previous trigger events to be analysed, while comprehensive search functions further simplify this task.

More than 90 measurement functions are included in the R&S RTO6 series, organised into amplitude and time measurements, jitter, eye, histogram and spectral measurements. In addition, multiple application-specific software options for complex measurements are available, and users can easily unlock them with a keycode as their testing requirements evolve, even after purchasing the instrument.

These options include triggering and decoding of serial protocols, automated compliance tests on high speed digital interfaces, detailed options for jitter analysis and power analysis, as well as spectrum, power, TDR/TDT and signal analysis.

Furthermore, an extensive probe portfolio is available from Rohde & Schwarz to support all measurement tasks with the R&S RTO6.

Applications range from EMI debugging and spectrum analysis to automotive Ethernet testing and serial bus analysis, as well as power electronics testing and digital design.