WaveLink 25 GHz High Bandwidth Differential Probes

11th March 2010

ES Admin

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LeCroy Corporation today announced the launch of the WaveLink 25 GHz high bandwidth differential solder-in probe, the fastest probe currently available. This probe expands the recently (August 2009) introduced 13-20 GHz WaveLink probe line and is well-matched to LeCroy’s WaveMaster 8 Zi oscilloscope product line, which includes bandwidths up to 30 GHz. Now, engineers who find it insufficient to use SMA cables to input signals directly into their oscilloscope can use a LeCroy WaveLink D2505 differential probe and a WaveMaster 825Zi oscilloscope to achieve 25 GHz of scope and probe bandwidth – an industry first.

LeCroy’s WaveLink high bandwidth differential solder-in probes provide superior rise time performance, and the new probe extends this performance to 17.5 ps for a 25 GHz probe used with a 25 GHz oscilloscope, the same as the oscilloscope-only rise time. In addition, baseline electrical noise in the probe product line has been dramatically lowered and is only 3.1 mVrms at 25 GHz, and only 1.6 mVrms at 13 GHz. In addition, the probes exhibit superior AC loading in the mid-band and high frequency range with only 350 Ohms at 7 GHz, 575 Ohms at 13 GHz, 325 Ohms at 16 GHz, 160 Ohms at 20 GHz, and 120 Ohms at 25 GHz — nearly twice the loading provided by other probes at similar bandwidths. This combination of performance and bandwidth is essential for accurately characterizing next generation serial data signals, and comes closer in signal fidelity to cabled inputs than any other similar bandwidth oscilloscope probe. This is especially important when oscilloscope channels must be conserved for multiple differential signal measurements, such as with multi-lane protocols like PCI Express.

Superior Probe Noise, Rise Time Performance, and Industry Leading AC Probe Loading
The new 25 GHz high bandwidth WaveLink probes, like the 13-20 GHz WaveLink probes, are of a trans-mission line design with an attenuating tip followed by an amplifier output to a differential transmission line connecting to the oscilloscope with a platform/cable assembly. This type of design was pioneered by LeCroy, provides superior performance at high bandwidth, and is now the standard type of design for probes of bandwidths >6 GHz. The minimum AC loading (Zmin) of the new WaveLink probe at high frequency is far superior to competitive units at 13 to 20 GHz, and of course, there is no comparison at 25 GHz.

Solder-In Tip with Field Replaceable Resistors
Engineers have long appreciated the LeCroy solder-in tip for the placement of the damping resistors as near to the circuit as possible, without long wire lengths (which affect probe performance) between the damping resistor and the circuit. Not only did this provide excellent signal fidelity, but it also relieved the engineer of the burden of precision measuring, cutting, and soldering of small pieces of wire to the end of the solder-in tip before use, as is required with competitive solder-in probes. Now, LeCroy has improved on this design by making the damping resistors on the solder-in tip field replaceable so that an engineer, faced with a damaged tip, can simply solder a new damping resistor to the tip and quickly resume work. Each solder-in probe comes standard with 10 spare damping resistors, and more can be ordered.