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Oscilloscope Buyer's Guide: Types, Specifications, and Manufacturers

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With the advancement of technologies, troubleshooting and testing have become more challenging. This requires digital storage oscilloscopes and real-time spectrum analysis to debug issues. A low-cost oscilloscope is always desirable among engineers and enthusiasts working in the electronics industry.

To meet the demand across industries, various manufacturers have introduced diverse oscilloscope options to suit user needs. Popular companies include Teledyne Lecroy, Agilent, Tektronix, Digilent, Link Instruments, Parallax Inc., etc. Nowadays, companies are providing multifunction support in oscilloscopes, including functionalities such as spectrum analyzers, logic analyzers, arbitrary function generators, protocol analyzers, and digital multimeters.

The following section outlines typical oscilloscope specifications based on different types of oscilloscopes.

Oscilloscope Specifications

  1. Bandwidth: The range of frequencies that can be analyzed by the oscilloscope. It’s the frequency where a sinusoidal input is attenuated to approximately 70.7% of its amplitude value.

  2. Sample Rate: This parameter specifies how often a signal is sampled, allowing the signal to be reconstructed without distortion from digital samples. According to the Nyquist theorem, the sampling rate should be greater than twice the maximum input signal frequency. However, different sampling rates are adopted based on different interpolation techniques.

  3. Record Length: The duration of time captured by each oscilloscope channel is referred to as the record length.

    Time Captured = Record Length / Sampling Rate

  4. External Trigger: Helps stabilize waveforms for easy viewing. Edge and pulse width trigger options are generally available.

  5. Waveform Capture Rate: Higher capture rate oscilloscopes are needed to capture fast transients of the time domain signal.

  6. Supporting Probe: Should have the same bandwidth as the oscilloscope.

Beyond the basic specifications mentioned above, the following oscilloscope-specific specifications are essential.

Oscilloscope Types

Following are the types of oscilloscopes based on different applications and needs from engineers have been manufactured by companies.

Oscilloscope TypeBasic SpecificationsManufacturersModel Examples
Oscilloscope with integrated displayBandwidth, sampling rate, external trigger, no. of channels, automated waveform measurement, display size, I/O interfacesAgilent, Tektronix, Gwinstek, Rigol, Teledyne LecroyModel: 940-WAVEACE1001 supports BW of up to 40MHz at 1GS/s with 2 channels
Pocket size oscilloscopeBandwidth, Sample rateJyetech, VElleman, Uni-trendModel DSO 094 (dual channel) from Jyetech, UT81B from Uni-trend etc.
PC Based OscilloscopeBandwidth, sample rate, multifunction support as mentioned aboveDynon Instruments, Link Instruments, Easysync, Virtins TechnologyModel MSO-19 from Link instruments supports 60MHz bandwidth, supports repetitive mode up to 1GS/s and single shot up to 200MS/S, supports multifunction feature.
DIY type OscilloscopeLow-cost design of our own with bandwidth and sample rateEO systems, JyetecheOscope with BW of 20 MHz and sample rate of 40MS/S
Advanced OscilloscopeMulti-function advanced featuresR & S, Agilent Technologies, TektronixR & S RTO from 600MHz to 4GHz, 6-in-1 MDO3000 mixed signal oscilloscope from Tektronix, Agilent Infniivision and Infriium series from 1GHz to 6 GHz.

Oscilloscope Manufacturers

Following are few of the latest releases from leading manufacturers across the world.

  • Company: Teledyne Lecroy

    • Model: Wavesurfer 3000 series
    • Features: 10.1” touch screen, bandwidth from 200 to 500 MHz, 4GS/S sampling rate, 10Mpts/Channel memory
    • Cost: About 3200to3200 to 6950 as on July, 2014

  • Company: R&S

    • Model: RTO Family
    • Features: Model RTO 1044 measures fast clock up to a frequency of 800MHz with a bandwidth of 4GHz. It supports 20Gs/s sampling rate and interfaces with data rates of 1.6Gbps.