Communication systems keep pushing the limits as optical has quickly evolved into an essential ingredient in their design. Technologies like expanded beam fiber-optic connectors are making high-speed optical connections more common. Moreover, silicon photonics is becoming a requirement to support artificial intelligence (AI) in the data center.
Consequently, the ability to test these systems is important, which demands high-speed oscilloscopes like Keysight’s latest DCA-M Sampling Oscilloscope family (see figure). They're designed to take on the latest 1.6-TB optical transceivers. The 224-Gb/s sampling oscilloscopes can work with data rates up to 120 Gbaud. Available in single- and dual-input versions, they've been built with a host PC in mind, handling optical signal analysis up to 240 Gb/s/lane. The PC runs Keysight’s FlexOTO Optical Test software.
The scopes incorporate integrated clock recovery support up to 120 Gbaud, eliminating the requirement to configure and route separate sub-rate signals. The test systems are designed to deliver high sensitivity with low jitter. Channel noise for optical connections is less than 1 µW and 275 µV for electrical connections. Jitter RMS is under 90 fs.
