InP: the key to 100GHz Oscilloscopes
Keysight Technologies, a US electronic measurement company, has announced that its latest InP technology will enable it to deliver real-time and equivalent-time oscilloscopes in 2017 that offer bandwidths over 100GHz.
Six years ago, Keysight released its first oscilloscope with chipsets built using its proprietary InP semiconductor process. According to the company, investing in the next-generation InP process has allowed it to scale the transistor switching frequencies beyond 300GHz, enabling higher bandwidths in both the chips and the end products.
"Keysight is investing in a completely new technology chain to meet the next-generation measurement needs of our customers," said Dave Cipriani, vice president and general manager of Keysight's oscilloscope business. "Our goal is to move multiple performance parameters ahead simultaneously. The next-generation oscilloscopes deliver bandwidths starting at 80 GHz and going beyond 100 GHz. They will have a lower noise density, providing higher-resolution measurements in tightly-synchronized, multi-channel systems. Whether customers are measuring higher baud rates, higher order QAM signals or multi-channel systems, these next-generation scopes will meet their needs."
Engineers working with next-generation, high-speed interfaces, such as the upcoming IEEE P802.3bs 400G, as well as terabit coherent optical modulation, will need oscilloscopes for electrical parametric measurements. These technologies and others will play a key role in validating fifth-generation wireless (5G) designs.
These interfaces will drive the need for high-performance, real-time and equivalent-time signal analysis capabilities to 100 GHz and beyond. As data rates continue to extend beyond 56 Gb/s NRZ and 56 GBaud multi-level signaling, engineers will need not only higher bandwidth, but also higher vertical resolution and lower noise floors to address their validation challenges, and the new chipsets have been designed with this in mind.
