The Tektronix MDO3024 Mixed Domain Oscilloscope is the ultimate 6-in-1 integrated oscilloscope that includes an integrated spectrum analyzer, arbitrary function generator, logic analyzer, protocol analyzer, and digital voltmeter/counter. The Tektronix MDO3024 is completely customized and fully upgradable; Add the instruments and performance you need now - or later.

Oscilloscope Overview

At the core of the Tektronix MDO3024 is a world-class oscilloscope, offering comprehensive tools that speed each stage of debug – from quickly discovering anomalies and capturing them, to searching your waveform record for events of interest and analyzing their characteristics and your device’s behavior.

Digital phosphor technology with FastAcq high-speed waveform capture

To debug a design problem, first you must know it exists. Every design engineer spends time looking for problems in their design, a time-consuming and frustrating task without the right debug tools.

Digital phosphor technology provides you with fast insight into the real operation of your device. Its fast waveform capture rate – greater than 280,000 wfm/s with FastAcq – gives you a high probability of quickly seeing the infrequent problems common in digital systems: runt pulses, glitches, timing issues, and more.

To further enhance the visibility of rarely occurring events, intensity grading is used to indicate how often rare transients are occurring relative to normal signal characteristics. There are four waveform palettes available in FastAcq acquisition mode.

These color palettes quickly highlight the events that over time occur more often or, in the case of infrequent anomalies, occur less often.

Infinite or variable persistence choices determine how long waveforms stay on the display, helping you to determine how often an anomaly is occurring.

Triggering

Discovering a device fault is only the first step. Next, you must capture the event of interest to identify root cause. To enable this, the Tektronix MDO 3024 contains over 125 trigger combinations providing a complete set of triggers - including runt, logic, pulse width/glitch, setup and hold violation, serial packet, and parallel data - to help quickly locate your event of interest. And with up to a 10 M record length, you can capture many events of interest, even thousands of serial packets, in a single acquisition for further analysis while maintaining high resolution to zoom in on fine signal details.

Wave Inspector waveform navigation and automated search

With long record lengths, a single acquisition can include thousands of screens of waveform data. Wave Inspector, the industry’s best tool for waveform navigation and automated search, enables you to find events of interest in seconds.

Zoom and pan

A dedicated, two-tier front-panel control provides intuitive control of both zooming and panning. The inner control adjusts the zoom factor (or zoom scale); turning it clockwise activates zoom and goes to progressively higher zoom factors, while turning it counter-clockwise results in lower zoom factors and eventually turning zoom off. No longer do you need to navigate through multiple menus to adjust your zoom view. The outer control pans the zoom box across the waveform to quickly get to the portion of waveform you are interested in. The outer control also utilizes force-feedback to determine how fast to pan on the waveform. The farther you turn the outer control, the faster the zoom box moves. Pan direction is changed by simply turning the control the other way.

User marks

Press the Set Mark front-panel button to place one or more marks on the waveform. Navigating between marks is as simple as pressing the Previous (←) and Next (→) buttons on the front panel.

Search marks

The Search button allows you to automatically search through your long acquisition looking for user-defined events. All occurrences of the event are highlighted with search marks and are easily navigated to, using the front-panel Previous (←) and Next (→) buttons. Search types include edge, pulse width/glitch, time out, runt, logic, setup and hold, rise/fall time, parallel bus, and I2C, SPI, RS-232/422/485/UART, USB 2.0, CAN, LIN, FlexRay, MIL-STD-1553, and Audio packet content. A search mark table provides a tabular view of the events found during the automated search. Each event is shown with a time stamp, making timing measurements between events easy.

Waveform analysis

Verifying that your prototype’s performance matches simulations and meets the project’s design goals requires analyzing its behavior. Tasks can range from simple checks of rise times and pulse widths to sophisticated powerloss analysis and investigation of noise sources. The oscilloscope offers a comprehensive set of integrated analysis tools including waveform- and screen-based cursors, automated measurements,advanced waveform math including arbitrary equation editing, FFT analysis, waveform histograms, and trend plots for visually determining how a measurement is changing over time.

Waveform histograms show visually how waveforms vary over time. Horizontal waveform histograms are especially useful for gaining insight into how much jitter is on a clock signal, and what the distribution of that jitter is. Vertical histograms are especially useful for gaining insight into how much noise is on a signal, and what the distribution of that noise is. Measurements taken on a waveform histogram provide analytical information about the distribution of a waveform histogram, providing insight into just how broad a distribution is, the amount of standard deviation, the mean value, etc.

Video design and development

Many video engineers have remained loyal to analog oscilloscopes,believing the intensity gradations on an analog display are the only way to see certain video waveform details. The fast waveform capture rate of the Tektronix MDO-3024, coupled with its intensity-graded view of the signal, provides the same information-rich display as an analog oscilloscope, but with much more detail and all the benefits of digital scopes.

Standard features such as IRE and mV graticules, hold off by fields, video polarity, HDTV and custom (non-standard) video triggers, and an Autoset smart enough to detect video signals, make these the easiest to use oscilloscopes on the market for video applications. And with high bandwidth, four analog inputs, and a built-in 75 Ω input termination (not available on 1 GHz models), the Tektronix MDO3024 oscilloscope provides ample performance for analog and digital video use. There is even a video picture mode enabling you to see the picture of the video signal you are viewing – for NTSC and PAL signals.

Limit/Mask testing (optional)

A common task during the development process is characterizing the behavior of certain signals in a system. One method, called limit testing, is to compare a tested signal to a known good or "golden" version of the same signal with user-defined vertical and horizontal tolerances. Another common method, called mask testing, is to compare a tested signal to a mask, looking for where a signal under test violates the mask. The Tektronix MDO/3024 offers both limit and mask testing capability useful for long-term signal monitoring, characterizing signals during design, or testing on a production line. Tailor a test to your specific requirements by defining test duration in number of waveforms or time, a violation threshold that must be met before considering a test a failure, counting hits along with statistical information, and actions upon violations, test failure, and test complete. Whether specifying a mask from a known good signal or from a custom mask, conducting pass/fail tests in search of waveform anomalies such as glitches has never been easier.

Standard passive voltage probes

The Tektronix MDO 3024 oscilloscope include passive voltage probes with industry best capacitive loading of only 3.9 pF. The included TPP probes minimize the impact on devices under test and accurately deliver signals to the oscilloscope for acquisition and analysis.

TekVPI probe interface

The TekVPI probe interface sets the standard for ease of use in probing. In addition to the secure, reliable connection that the interface provides,TekVPI probes feature status indicators and controls, as well as a probe menu button right on the comp box itself. This button brings up a probe menu on the oscilloscope display with all relevant settings and controls for the probe. The TekVPI interface enables direct attachment of current probes without requiring a separate power supply. TekVPI probes can be controlled remotely through USB, GPIB, or LAN, enabling more versatile solutions in ATE environments. The TekVPI inputs provide up to 25 W of power to the front panel connectors from the internal power supply.

Remote connectivity and instrument control

Exporting data and measurements is as simple as connecting a USB cable from the oscilloscope to your PC. Key software applications - OpenChoice Desktop, and Microsoft Excel and Word tool bars – are included standard with each oscilloscope to enable fast and easy direct communication with your Windows PC.

The included OpenChoice Desktop enables fast and easy communication between the oscilloscope and your PC through USB or LAN for transferring settings, waveforms, and screen images.

The embedded e*Scope capability enables fast control of the oscilloscope over a network connection through a standard web browser. Simply enter the IP address or network name of the oscilloscope and a web page will be served to the browser. Transfer and save settings, waveforms,measurements, and screen images or make live control changes to settings on the oscilloscope directly from the web browser.

Spectrum Analyzer

The Tektronix MDO 3024 is the first oscilloscope in its class to include an integrated spectrum analyzer. The Tektronix MDO3024 includes a spectrum analyzer with a frequency range of 9 kHz up to the analog bandwidth of the instrument.

Fast and accurate spectral analysis

When using the spectrum analyzer input, the Tektronix MDO3000 Series display becomes a full-screen Frequency Domain view. Key spectral parameters such as Center Frequency, Span, Reference Level, and Resolution Bandwidth are all adjusted quickly and easily using the dedicated front-panel menus and keypad.

Intelligent, efficient markers

In a traditional spectrum analyzer, it can be a very tedious task to turn on and place enough markers to identify all your peaks of interest. The Tektronix MDO3024 Series makes this process far more efficient by automatically placing markers on peaks that indicate both the frequency and the amplitude of each peak. You can adjust the criteria that the oscilloscope uses to automatically find the peaks.

The highest amplitude peak is referred to as the reference marker and is shown in red. Marker readouts can be switched between Absolute and Delta readouts. When Delta is selected, marker readouts show each peak's delta frequency and delta amplitude from the reference marker.

Two manual markers are also available for measuring non-peak portions of the spectrum. When enabled, the reference marker is attached to one of the manual markers, enabling delta measurements from anywhere in the spectrum. In addition to frequency and amplitude, manual marker readouts also include noise density and phase noise readouts depending on whether Absolute or Delta readouts are selected. A "Reference Marker to Center" function instantly moves the frequency indicated by the reference marker to center frequency.

Spectrogram

The Tektronix MDO3024 Series includes a spectrogram display which is ideal for monitoring slowly changing RF phenomena. The x-axis represents frequency, just like a typical spectrum display. However, the y-axis represents time, and color is used to indicate amplitude.

Spectrogram slices are generated by taking each spectrum and "flipping it up on its edge" so that it's one pixel row tall, and then assigning colors to each pixel based on the amplitude at that frequency. Cold colors (blue,green) are low amplitude and hotter colors (yellow, red) are higher amplitude. Each new acquisition adds another slice at the bottom of the spectrogram and the history moves up one row. When acquisitions are stopped, you can scroll back through the spectrogram to look at any individual spectrum slice.

Ultra-wide capture bandwidth

Today's wireless communications vary significantly with time, using sophisticated digital modulation schemes and, often, transmission techniques that involve bursting the output. These modulation schemes can have very wide bandwidth as well. Traditional swept or stepped spectrum analyzers are ill equipped to view these types of signals as they are only able to look at a small portion of the spectrum at any one time.

The amount of spectrum acquired in one acquisition is called the capture bandwidth. Traditional spectrum analyzers sweep or step the capture bandwidth through the desired span to build the requested image. As a result, while the spectrum analyzer is acquiring one portion of the spectrum,the event you care about may be happening in another portion of the spectrum. Most spectrum analyzers on the market today have 10 MHz capture bandwidths, sometimes with expensive options to extend that to 20, 40, or even 160 MHz in some cases.

Spectrum traces

The Tektronix MDO3024's spectrum analyzer offers four different traces or views including Normal, Average, Max Hold, and Min Hold.

RF measurements

The Tektronix MDO3024 Series includes three automated RF measurements -Channel Power, Adjacent Channel Power Ratio, and Occupied Bandwidth. When one of these RF measurements is activated, the oscilloscope automatically turns on the Average spectrum trace and sets the detection method to Average for optimal measurement results.

Advanced RF analysis

The Tektronix MDO3024 can save the baseband I and Q data from spectrum analyzer acquisitions to a .TIQ file. These files can then be imported into Tektronix Signal VU-PC software for general purpose modulation and pulse analysis or RSAVu for analysis of commercial wireless standards.

Digital Voltmeter (DVM) and Frequency Counter

The Tektronix MDO3024 contains an integrated 4-digit digital voltmeter (DVM) and 5-digit frequency counter. Any of the analog inputs can be a source for the voltmeter, using the same probes that are already attached for general oscilloscope usage. The easy-to-read display offers you both numeric and graphical representations of the changing measurement values. The display also shows minimum, maximum, and average values of the measurement as well as the range of values measured over the previous five second interval. The DVM and frequency counter is available on any Tektronix MDO3024 and is activated when you register your product.

Optional Tektronix MDO3024 Add-ons

Arbitrary Function Generator (option MDO3AFG)

The Tektronix MDO3024 contains an optional integrated arbitrary function generator, perfect for simulating sensor signals within a design or adding noise to signals to perform margin testing. The integrated function generator provides output of predefined waveforms up to 50 MHz for sine, square, pulse, ramp/triangle, DC, noise, sin(x)/x(Sinc), Gaussian, Lorentz, exponential rise/fall, Haversine and cardiac.

The arbitrary waveform generator provides 128 k points of record for storing waveforms from the analog input, a saved internal file location, a USB mass storage device, or from an external PC. Once a waveform is in the edit memory of the arbitrary waveform generator, it can be modified via an on-screen editor and then replicated out of the generator. The Tektronix MDO3024 is compatible with Tektronix’ Arb Express PC-based waveform creation and editing software, making creation of complex waveforms fast and easy. Transfer waveform files to the Tektronix MDO3024 edit memory via USB or LAN or using a USB mass storage device to be output from the AFG in the oscilloscope.

Logic Analyzer (option MDO3MSO)

The logic analyzer provides 16 digital channels which are tightly integrated into the Tektronix MDO3024 oscilloscope's user interface. This simplifies operation and makes it possible to solve mixed-signal issues easily.

Color-coded digital waveform display: Color-coded digital traces display ones in green and zeros in blue. This coloring is also used in the digital channel monitor. The monitor shows if signals are high, low, or are transitioning so you can see channel activity at a glance without having to clutter your display with unneeded digital waveforms. The multiple transition detection hardware shows you a white edge on the display when the system detects multiple transitions. White edges indicate that more information is available by zooming in or acquiring at faster sampling rates. In most cases zooming in will reveal the pulse that was not viewable with the previous settings. If the white edge is still present after zooming in as far as possible, this indicates that increasing the sample rate on the next acquisition will reveal higher frequency information than the previous settings could acquire.

MagniVu high-speed acquisition: The main digital acquisition mode on the Tektronix MDO3024 will capture up to 10 M at 500 MS/s (2 ns resolution). In addition to the main record, the Tektronix MDO3024 provides an ultra high-resolution record called MagniVu which acquires 10,000 points at up to 8.25 GS/s (121.2 ps resolution). Both main and MagniVu waveforms are acquired on every trigger and can be switched between in the display at any time, running or stopped. MagniVu provides significantly finer timing resolution than comparable oscilloscopes on the market, instilling confidence when making critical timing measurements on digital waveforms.

Spectrum Analyzer (option MDO3SA)

The spectrum analyzer frequency range of each instrument can be upgraded from 9 kHz to 3 GHz (option MDO3SA), enabling spectral analysis on most consumer wireless standards.

In order to address the bandwidth requirements of modern RF, the Tektronix MDO3024 Oscilloscope's Spectrum Analyzer provides up to 3 GHz of capture bandwidth. The spectrum is generated from a single acquisition, thus guaranteeing you'll see the events you're looking for in the frequency domain.

Enhanced instrument security (option MDO3SEC)

Enhanced instrument security to enable password protected control of turning on/off all instrument ports and instrument firmware update functionality

P6316 MSO probe

This unique probe design offers two eight-channel pods, simplifying the process of connecting to the device-under-test. When connecting to square pins, the Tektronix P6316 can connect directly to 8x2 square pin headers spaced on tenth-inch centers. When more attachment flexibility is required, you can use the included flying lead sets and grabbers to clip onto surface mount devices or test points. The Tektronix P6316 offers outstanding electrical characteristics applying only 8 pF of capacitive loading with 101 kΩ input impedance.