TSP #172 - Tektronix 6-Series 4-Channel 25GS/s 8GHz MSO Review, Teardown & Experiments (Part 1)

In this episode Shahriar reviews the top-of-the-line Tektronix 6-Series Oscilloscope:

This 4-channel instrument offers 8-GHz of bandwidth at 25GS/s on all channel independently. Tektronix has made great strides in offering low-noise front-end custom ASICs combined with hardware digital down-conversion built into the core of the 6-Series. This enables advanced triggering across in both time and frequency domains as well as multi-domain correlated measurements.
This review is organized as follows:

00:00 – Introductions
01:42 – Instrument design, front and back panels
03:34 – Full acquisition board teardown, analysis and architecture
18:11 – PLL Experiment: Spectrum View, advanced triggering, PLL characterization and debugging
38:33 – Backplane Communication: Jitter analysis, eye diagrams, jitter composition, cross-talk
49:24 – Concluding remarks

The Signal Path

[EEVblog]

Awesome!
Bonus having those two unpopulated channels to allow us to see the layout.

[WyattWingo]

I wrote some of the RF trigger code, always like seeing someone impressed by it. Was one of the funnest features to develop.

[steve_case]

Great content and quality as usual Shahriar. Great to see video content on phase noise and jitter experiments. Can't wait to see part 2.

[seanbosse]

New Signal Path upload! New Signal Path upload!!!
Alas, I die just a little more inside each time I don't see Phased Locked Loop in the title. Oh well, I guess I'll Like it anyway. 😉
Seriously tho, thank you for all of your efforts put into teaching others.

[stefanvoigt]

To make so many measurements simultaneously in time and frequency domain is just fascinating. Great content on PLLs too! I have always wondered how to measure phase noise in a meaningful way. Thank you so much for all your effort, great content!

[SanthoshRamaraj]

My wife won't understand the goosebumps I get watching your video and your explanation!

[piranha]

If you start the table of contents from 00:00, Youtube will automatically add chapter markers and titles to the progress bar

[gglovato]

What a beast, i love these reviews of "if you have to ask, you can't afford it" type of equipment

[JonHeckendorf]

Excellent presentation. Excellent details. I subscribed for more, more of everything.
That said, the cost of your equipment is out of my reach by several decades.
Programs like this teaches me new techniques and test types.
I can only afford 80's and 90's vintage test equipment.

[pratwurschtgulasch]

The VGA port in the back is really good for hooking up to my old black-and-white TV

[glenslick]

15:15 The 6 Series B was just announced. The MSO68B is the 8 channel model, in addition to the MSO64B 4 channel and MSO66B 6 channel models.

[Ziferten]

Oh man, talk about attention to detail... 10% trigger button is SO handy, and exactly what I want 90% of the time.

[PebblesChan]

It’s fantastic to see that controlled ESD measures are being followed.

[BrianHensleyRULES]

To think you can get it in a typical scope form factor, and a screen-less high density, 2U rack based version too. They've though of everything. :)

[kcmichaelm]

This was fantastic! Thank you so much.

[SERKAN_HOT]

Super awesome devices, man, I can't even have these devices in my dream. :)

[udhayakumara]

You are great. Just I start to look for an oscilloscope (Tek 5 & Keysight MXR), here I have notification with Tek 6 series. I would like to compare this with newly released Keysight MXR series (12bit Vs low noise 10 bit)

[Bertemus]

Could it be those apparent trace disconnects you were musing about on the empty channels @ 14:14 or thereabouts were done to prevent any antenna effect or noise coupling in ?..with no chips installed they would seem like un-terminated lines which might impact the active channels...just musing myself...great job as always sir

[Nik]

As much as i absolutely love this, i cant really think of any part of my work that would benefit from most of those features. I mostly design NFC readers and some SBC (mostly for payment or ticketing applications) and in that field, those kinds of measurements are not really needed.
Still it looks like a very useful and well made piece of equipment, that would be useful to people who need it. Thank you for showing stuff like that on youtube, its always really interesting to come just a little bit closer to equipment like that.

[navadeep]

Just amazing to see what's inside such a sophisticated tool.
I have one of those PLL EVK from Hittite and was wondering how to use them since sometime. Its software is fancy though!