The LeCroy WavePro 7 Zi series oscilloscopes are workhorse instruments with bandwidths from 1.5 to 6 GHz. They are fast, responsive, and powerful; but, more than that, they offer exceptional breadth of functionality. These scopes can measure analog waveforms, parallel digital data, high and low speed serial data, jitter, RF signals, serial data decoding, and a host of other capabilities.

The design of such a superior instrument is based on LeCroy’s X-Stream II streaming architecture augmented with an Intel Core 2 Quad 2.5 GHz processor, 8 GB of processor RAM and a 64 bit operating system. This results in a scope that is 10- 20times faster than competitive offerings.

The WavePro 7 Zi has the deepest toolbox with more measurements, more math, and more power enabling users to gain insight quickly with complete confidence.

Figure 1:

Analog or digital, high frequency or low frequency the WavePro 7 Zi series oscilloscopes handle it all.

Figure 2:

A block diagram of a typical electronic device showing the different types of signals and data paths.

With the WavePro 7 Zi series LeCroy has leveraged its more than forty years of instrument design experience to offer a host of exclusive features including:

  • “TriggerScan™” glitch capture
  • 15.3 inch widescreen display
  • Removable front panel ( Figure 1)
  • Dual probe interfaces (4-6 GHz)
  • Up to 128 Mpoint FFT’s
  • True quad-core processing
  • 500 Mpts/s data transfer rates

Let’s look at how the WavePro 7 Zi series oscilloscopes can help solve your measurement problems. Figure 2 shows a block diagram of a typical electronic device with a variety of devices and data paths. In the past debugging a device like this might require 3 or more different instruments.

The CPU block, shown outlined in green, can be debugged with a general purpose scope that has low speed serial bus trigger and decode capability and can handle I2C and SPI data and clock signals.

The section enclosed in blue contains the parallel digital buses. Here a logic analyzer or mixed-signal oscilloscope would be useful.

The areas enclosed in red require a wide bandwidth scope equipped with jitter analysis and serial data compliance testing. This instrument needs to have a high sampling rate and a stable timebase

Figure 3:

Matching oscilloscope functionality with measurement needs

Let’s take a look at how various oscilloscope suppliers attempt to cover these diverse measurement needs.

Table 1 shows a summary of key features in competitive scopes that cover the 1.5 to 6 GHz range. These oscilloscopes have two basic configurations. The first type is a general purpose scope like the Tektronix DPO 7000 series. These scopes are generally lower in cost and have more limited performance and features. The other type is high performance scopes such as the Agilent DSO/DSA 90000 series and the Tektronix DPO/DSA 70000 series. These units are optimized for wide bandwidth high speed measurements. They lack some of the low speed measurement capabilities due to the restrictive front end architecture. Note that only the LeCroy WavePro 7 Zi series oscilloscopes of the full range of capabilities that address the needs we discussed in the example above. It allows you to get the signals in, measure and analyze them and come to a solution faster.

Table 1:

A Summary of Competitive scope features covering the 1.5 to 6 GHz bandwidth range