OSCILLOSCOPE

FUNDAMENTALS
Primer
CONTENTS
Overview 3 Oscilloscope benchmark specifications 14
Where it all began...........................................................3 Bandwidth.....................................................................14
The digital age beckons..............................................3 Effective of number of bits (ENOB)...............................14
Types of digital oscilloscopes..........................................4 Channels.......................................................................15
Digital sampling oscilloscopes....................................4 Sample rate...................................................................15
Real-time sampling oscilloscopes...............................4 Memory depth..............................................................15
Mixed-signal oscilloscopes.........................................4 Types of triggering........................................................15
Basic elements of digital oscilloscopes...........................5 Rise time.......................................................................15
The vertical system.....................................................5 Frequency response......................................................15
The horizontal system.................................................6 Gain (vertical) and timebase (horizontal) accuracy........16
The trigger system......................................................6 ADC vertical resolution..................................................16
The display system and user interface........................9 Vertical sensitivity..........................................................16
Display and user interface.............................................17
Probes 10 Communications capabilities........................................17
Passive probes..........................................................10
Active probes............................................................11 Typical oscilloscope measurements 18
Differential probes.....................................................11 Voltage measurements.................................................18
Current probes..........................................................11 Phase shift measurements............................................18
High-voltage probes.................................................11 Time measurements......................................................18
Pulse width and rise time measurements.....................18
Benefits of a n­ oninterleaved ADC 12 Decoding serial buses...................................................18
Probe considerations.....................................................13 Frequency analysis, statistics and math functions........18
Circuit loading...........................................................13
Grounding.................................................................13 Summary 20
Probe selection process............................................13
Glossary 21

2
OVERVIEW
The oscilloscope is arguably one of the most powerful tools ever created for use by electronic engineers. In
the over five decades since the creation of the modern analog oscilloscope, hundreds of useful documents
and thousands of articles have been written about it, how it works, how to use it and application-specific
examples of oscilloscopes in action. So, this primer will focus on digital oscilloscopes, which have replaced
their analog predecessors in the vast majority of applications. This document provides a short description of
the oscilloscope’s origins, its transition from analog to digital, types of digital oscilloscopes and their major
subsystems, key benchmark specifications and measurements.

Where it all began Oscilloscopes continued to advance in both capabilities

Nobel Prize-winning physicist K. F. Braun (Fig. 1) of and features over the years in tandem with the rapid devel-
Germany invented the cathode ray tube (CRT) oscilloscope opment of high-performance analog and digital semicon-
as a physics curiosity in 1897. He applied an oscillating ductor devices and software.
signal to horizontal deflector plates and a test signal to
a vertical deflector in a phosphor-coated CRT. The plates The digital age beckons
produced transient plots of electrical waveforms on the Digital oscilloscopes began their rise to ubiquity in the
small phosphor screen. This invention evolved into a mea- 1980s and benefited from faster analog-to-digital (A/D)
surement instrument and was gradually improved over the conversion and memory for recording and displaying
next 50 years. Engineer Howard Vollum made an advance- waveforms (Fig. 2 on next page). Even the earliest digital
ment in 1947 transforming the oscilloscope a highly-useful oscilloscopes had triggering, analysis and display flexibility
instrument by allowing a trigger to control the sweep func- that no analog oscilloscope could match. Semiconductor
tion for the first time. and software advancements transformed the instrument’s
design from mostly analog to mostly digital. Processing
Without a trigger, early oscilloscopes traced the input volt- signals in the digital domain has the same benefits for
age waveform, starting a horizontal trace when input volt- other consumer, commercial and industrial products, but
age exceeded an adjustable threshold. Triggering allowed digital oscilloscopes had truly major advantages. In gen-
repeating waveforms to remain stable on the CRT dis- eral, signal could not only be manipulated in ways never
play as multiple repetitions of the waveform were drawn before possible but also analyzed in immense detail, while
over the same trace. If there is no triggering, an oscillo- accommodating the special requirements of increasingly
scope will draw multiple copies of the waveform in differ- complex, high-speed data streams. They now allowed
ent places, resulting in an incoherent jumble or a moving users to capture events based on specific parameters and
image on the screen. see what happened before they occurred. Oscilloscopes
could now be part of an automated test system thanks to
local area networks and the internet and their results dis-
played to users in the next room, next town or on another
continent. One key benchmark in digital oscilloscope
architecture was the introduction of the digital trigger by
Rohde & Schwarz in 2009, eliminating inherent limitations
(such as trigger jitter) of analog types. This will be covered
in detail later.

Fig. 1: Nobel Prize-winning physicist K. F. Braun

Rohde & Schwarz Oscilloscope Fundamentals 3

Types of digital oscilloscopes Many oscilloscopes today have specific options, which
The digital oscilloscope performs two basic functions: turn the digital oscilloscope into a hybrid instrument with
acquisition and analysis. During acquisition the sampled the analysis capabilities of a logic analyzer. This is valuable
signals are saved to memory and during analysis the to quickly debug digital circuits thanks to its digital trigger-
acquired waveforms are analyzed and output to the dis- ing capability, high resolution, acquisition capability and
play. There are a variety of digital oscilloscopes and those analysis tools.
described here are the most common today.
Mixed-signal oscilloscopes
Digital sampling oscilloscopes Mixed-signal oscilloscopes expand digital oscilloscope
The digital sampling oscilloscope samples signals before functions to include logic and protocol analysis, simplify-
any signal conditioning such as attenuation or amplifica- ing the test bench and allowing synchronous visualiza-
tion. The design allows the instrument to have very broad tion of analog waveforms, digital signals and protocol
bandwidth, although with somewhat limited dynamic details within a single instrument. Hardware developers
range of 1 V (Vpp). Unlike some other types of digital oscil- use mixed-signal oscilloscopes to analyze signal integrity,
loscopes, a digital sampling oscilloscope can capture sig- while software developers use them to analyze signal con-
nals that have frequency components much higher than tent. A typical mixed-signal oscilloscope has two or four
the instrument’s sample rate. This makes it possible to analog channels and many more digital channels. Analog
measure repetitive signals much faster than with any other and digital channels are acquired synchronously so they
type of oscilloscope. As a result, digital sampling oscillo- can be correlated in time and analyzed in one instrument.
scopes are used in very high bandwidth applications such
as fiber optics, where their high cost can be justified.

Real-time sampling oscilloscopes

The benefits of real-time sampling are clear when the fre-
quency range of a signal is less than half that of an oscil-
loscope’s maximum sample rate. The technique allows the
instrument to acquire a very large number of points in a
single sweep for a highly precise display. It is currently the
only method capable of capturing the fastest single-shot
transient signals. The R&S®RTO series oscilloscopes fall
into this category.

Board-level embedded systems typically encompass 1 bit

signals, clocked and unclocked parallel and serial buses as
well as standardized or proprietary transmission formats.
All of these paths must be analyzed, typically requiring
complex test setups and multiple instruments. It is also
often necessary to display both analog and digital signals.

Analog oscilloscopes Digital storage oscilloscopes Digital oscilloscopes

1950 1980 2010
Analog signals Digital signals Mixed signals
Measurement challenges

Waveshapes Parallel data Serial data/standards

Signal edges Large scale integration System integration
Documentation Connectivity High frequency effects
Analog storage Usability Faster clock rates
Automatic measurements Sophisticated analysis
Ease of operation
Fig. 2: Oscilloscope measurement challenges

4
Basic elements of digital oscilloscopes Selecting 8, 10 or some other division is arbitrary. 10 is
Every digital oscilloscope has four basic functional blocks: often chosen for simplicity: It is easier to divide by 10 than
a vertical system, horizontal system, trigger system and 8. Probes also affect display scaling, as they either do not
display system. To appreciate the overall functionality of a attenuate signals (a 1x probe) or attenuate them 10 times
digital oscilloscope, it is important to understand the func- (a 10x probe) and even up to 1000x. Probes will be dis-
tions and importance of each one. cussed later.

Much of the front panel of a digital oscilloscope is dedi- The input coupling mentioned earlier defines how the sig-
cated to vertical, horizontal and trigger functions as they nal spans the path between capture by the probe through
encompass the majority of the required adjustments. The the cable and into the instrument. DC coupling provides
vertical section addresses attenuation or amplification of either 1 MΩ or 50 Ω of input coupling. A 50 Ω selection
signals using a control varying volts per division, which sends the input signal directly to the oscilloscope vertical
changes the attenuation or amplification to adapt the sig- gain amplifier, so the broadest bandwidth can be achieved.
nal to the display. The horizontal controls are for the instru- Selection of AC or DC coupling modes (and correspond-
ment’s timebase and the seconds per division control ing 1 MΩ termination value) places an amplifier in front
determines the amount of time per division shown hori- of the vertical gain amplifier, usually limiting bandwidth
zontally across the display. The triggering system performs to 500 MHz under all conditions. The benefit of such high
the basic function of stabilizing the signal, initiating the impedance is inherent protection from high voltages. By
oscilloscope to make an acquisition and allowing the user selecting Ground on the front panel, the vertical system is
to select and modify the actions of specific types of trig- disconnected, so the 0 V point is shown on the display.
gers. Finally, the display system includes the display itself
and drivers as well as software required for any display Other circuits related to the vertical system include a
functions. bandwidth limiter that while decreasing noise in displayed
waveforms also attenuates high-frequency signal con-
The vertical system tent. Many oscilloscopes also use a DSP arbitrary equal-
This oscilloscope subsystem (Fig. 3) allows the user to ization filter to extend the bandwidth of the instrument
position and scale the waveform vertically, select a value beyond the raw response of its frontend by shaping the
for input coupling as well as modify signal characteristics phase and magnitude response of the oscilloscope chan-
to configure them on the display. The user can vertically nel. However, these circuits require the sampling rate to
place the waveform at a precise position on the display satisfy Nyquist criteria (sampling rate must exceed twice
and increase or decrease its size. All oscilloscope displays the maximum fundamental frequency of the signal). To
have a grid dividing the visible area into 8 or 10 vertical achieve this, the instrument is usually locked into its maxi-
divisions, each representing a portion of total voltage. An mum sampling rate and cannot be lowered to view longer
oscilloscope with 10 divisions in the display grid has a time duration without disabling the filter.
total visible signal voltage of 50 V in 5 V divisions.

Memory
Vertical system
Display
Amplifier
Acquisition Post-
Attenuator ADC processing processing

Trigger Horizontal
system system
Amplifier
Fig. 3: The vertical system

Rohde & Schwarz Oscilloscope Fundamentals 5