Tektronix TDS8000 Digital Sampling Oscilloscope, DC to 50 GHz

The TDS8000 digital sampling oscilloscope offers the widest range of on-board measurement and waveform-processing capabilities of any ultra-high bandwidth oscilloscope. With excellent measurement repeatability, exceptional vertical resolution and fast waveform acquisition and display update rates, the TDS8000 is a powerful measurement tool for component testing, TDR characterization of circuit boards, IC packages and cables and high-speed digital communications.

State-of-the-art Waveform Acquisition
The 8000 Series state-of-the-art timebase provides equivalent time sweep speeds from 0.5 ps/div to 5 ms/div with record lengths from 20 to 4000 points and a sample interval of 10 femtoseconds (0.01 ps). In addition, 8000 Series sampling oscilloscopes’ timebases can be locked to a 10 MHz reference providing greater long-term stability. This capability also allows multiple TDS8000s to be synchronized to other test equipment and/or the device-under-test.

The TDS8000 offers two magnification windows, whereby sections of the main trace are re-acquired at higher resolution for closer examination of details.

The TDS8000 boasts the highest sample rate among sampling oscilloscopes. Its multi-processor architecture, with dedicated per channel Digital Signal Processors (DSP), guarantees the highest waveform acquisition rates regardless of the number of channels acquired or waveform processing done.

Modularity and Flexibility
The TDS8000 supports a large and growing family of electrical and optical plug-in modules . This modular architecture lets you configure the instrument with the right features for your application both now and in the future.

The electrical plug-ins include a variety of modules with bandwidths up to 50 GHz and with specialized features such as TDR for Impedance and Crosstalk Characterizations. High bandwidth probes are also available for constructing a total acquisition solution.

The available optical modules provide complete optical test solutions for both telecom (155 Mb/s to 40 Gb/s) and datacom (Fibre Channel and Gigabit Ethernet) applications as well as general-purpose optical signal testing.

Unmatched TDR Capabilities
With the 80E04 TDR sampling module, the TDS8000 offers unmatched TDR performance on up to eight channels simultaneously. Each channel has an independent polarity selectable step-generator offering unmatched 35 ps reflected rise time* 1 . The TDS8000 provides the only true differential TDR system available today. Automatic, transparent correction for variations in step amplitude and baseline offset guarantee accuracy and repeatability of impedance measurements.

8000 Series Sampling Oscilloscope Platform
The TDS8000 is built on Tektronix’ new sampling oscilloscope platform that combines familiar MS Windows-based PC technologies with world-class waveform acquisition technology.

This platform provides a wide array of standard instrumentation and communications interfaces (such as GPIB, Parallel Printer Port, RS-232-C and USB Serial Ports and an Ethernet LAN connection). In addition, the platform includes several mass storage devices (floppy disk, removable hard drive and CD-ROM).

The TDS8000 is equipped with a large, full-color display that helps you discriminate waveform details. Color-grading of waveform data adds a third dimension – sample density – to your signal acquisitions and analysis.

Finally, since the system supports an open MS Windows environment, new levels of data analysis can be done directly on the instrument using commercially available software packages.

* 1 The observed rise time of a reflection from a short circuit.