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LeCroy Corp. has launched a line of WaveRunner digital oscilloscopes that eliminate the trade off between high-performance, display size and bench footprint. Nearly two years ago, the company created the first big display/small footprint form factor oscilloscope. Now, it has brought this attractive form factor to the high-performance WaveRunner line of digital oscilloscopes. In fact, it has merged the big bright display of its WaveSurfer with the high-performance capability of WaveRunner. Thus, the new WaveRunner Xi series oscilloscopes boast big, bright 10.4-inch displays with only six-inch (15 cm) of depth, making them suitable for a crowded bench. According to LeCroy, the 10.4-inch display is 1.5x to 2.5x larger than competitive displays and the footprint is one-third to one-half to the size of other units in its class.

The WaveRunner Xi oscilloscopes handle sample rates up to 10 Gsample/s (interleaved) on the 600 MHz unit, and standard 2 Mpoint/channel memory (with optional memory up to 24 Mpoint/channel interleaved). These high sample rates (at least 10x oversampling) result in significantly better signal fidelity for fast edges or high-frequency signals, and ensure accurate timing measurements when using all channels.

In addition, LeCroy offers a mixed-signal option (MS-32) that allows users to add 32 digital channels, each with 1 Mpoint/channel (32 Mpoints total) to a four-channel WaveRunner Xi to expand four-channel scope capability to 4+32, which significantly enhances mixed signal and embedded controller debugging.

This new series is available at a price comparable to the WaveRunner 6000A series, even with the higher performance, bigger display and more compact size. In essence, the WaveRunner Xi series provides 2.5x to 5x the sampling rate, 2x the viewing area, and half the footprint of any competitive oscilloscope, according to the maker.

Other features include long capture time and an unmatched toolset for fast post processing and debug. It includes a variety of analysis tools, including many built-in standard measurement parameters and functions or optional software packages.

In addition, WaveStream fast viewing mode provides brightness-graded intensity with a decay time similar to the action of phosphor on an analog screen. Thus, the intensity of a signal over a period of time can be easily seen. Combined with the WaveRunner oscilloscope's long memory/capture time, it provides a unique combination of short-record viewing or long capture time analysis. Unlike fast acquisition/display modes from other manufacturers, which limit sample rate to 1.25 GS/s, WaveStream fast viewing mode operates at up to 10 GS/s with an update rate up to 8000 waveforms/second for better capture of higher-frequency abnormal events.

Another interesting feature of these oscilloscopes are that they are available with a user interface in nine different languages. The software user interface language can be changed at any time simply by selecting a language from a menu — no reboot is required. Local language front panel overlays are available as accessories, and can be quickly installed over the English front panel without requiring removal of knobs or removal of the standard English-language front panel.

Plus, it offers significantly enhanced triggering capability. SMART trigger bandwidth is increased by a factor of two and capability for AC, HFrej and LFrej coupling has been added. In addition, runt, slew rate and video triggers are now standard.

The WaveRunner Xi series can easily save waveform data or screen images directly to a USB memory stick or oscilloscope hard drive, e-mail data directly from the oscilloscope, label image files directly on the oscilloscope, print to any network printer, and save files on network servers. All WaveRunner Xi series oscilloscopes are provided with one PP008 probe per channel.

The new WaveRunner Xi series oscilloscopes are available in 400 MHz and 600 MHz bandwidths. The 400 MHz unit is available with four channels only, while the 600 MHz unit is available with two or four channels. All models sample at 5 Gsample/s on all channels simultaneously, and the 600 MHz model interleaves to 10 Gsample/s. All models provide 2 Mpoints/channel of memory (4 Mpoints/channel interleaved). Up to 12 Mpoints/channel (24 Mpoints/channel interleaved) of memory is available optionally.
LeCroy Corp.
(800) 553-2769
www.lecroy.com)