The new Infiniium 54830 Series of digital and mixed-signal scopes from Agilent Technologies Inc., Palo Alto (agilent.com), feature MegaZoom deep-memory technology, letting them store up to 128 mega-points (10 6 points). This lets engineers capture fast waveforms at the scope's full sample rate for tens of milliseconds. The scopes have bandwidths of 600 MHz and 1 GHz and feature a segmented memoryacquisition mode. It lets engineers analyzing bursting communication or radar signals capture and store only periods of activity. This means memory is not consumed storing periods of inactivity between bursts. The user interface is based on the open Windows XP Pro OS from Microsoft,letting users install third-party applications, including Agilent's vector-signal analysis software.Prices for the Infiniium oscilloscopes start at around $13,200.
Pulse-width data bursts are captured at the scope's full sampling speed and are displayed on the scope with time divisions of 2 msec/div (left). Tapping into the scope's deep memory, users can display the same pulses with time divisions of 1 nanosec/div to clearly bring out otherwise unseen detail. (right) This is a zoom ratio of 1 million to one.