Tektronix DPO7104 1 GHz Digital Oscilloscope

The Tektronix DPO7104 is a 4-channel 1GHz digital phosphor oscilloscope from the DPO7000 series. It runs 20GS/s on all four channels simultaneously, carries a 40M point record length, and puts all of it on a 12.1-inch XGA color touchscreen that was the largest display in its class when the instrument shipped. It is a serious bench scope for signal integrity work, serial bus debug, and high-speed design verification where record depth, capture rate, and trigger flexibility actually matter. Key Specs ParameterValueBandwidth1GHzChannels4 analogSample Rate20GS/s (all channels)Record Length40M pointsRise Time350psVertical Resolution8-bit (11-bit with Hi-Res mode)Input Impedance50 ohm / 1 Mohm selectableVertical Range1mV/div to 10V/divTime Base40ps/div to 1000s/divDisplay12.1-inch XGA color touchscreenWaveform Capture RateOver 250,000 waveforms per second (FastAcq)Trigger TypesOver 1,400 combinations via Pinpoint triggeringSerial DecodeI2C, SPI, RS-232, CANInterfaceUSB, LAN, GPIBOSWindows XP EmbeddedProbe InterfaceTekVPI, TekConnect FastAcq captures over 250,000 waveforms per second. That capture rate is what lets the digital phosphor display build up a color-graded intensity map of signal activity over time, showing which signal states occur frequently and which are rare. Glitches, runt pulses, and intermittent timing violations that a lower capture rate scope misses between triggers show up in the intensity map within seconds of connecting to the signal. Pinpoint triggering gives over 1,400 trigger combinations. Beyond the standard edge, pulse width, and timeout triggers, the DPO7104 handles setup/hold violations, serial packet content triggers on I2C, SPI, RS-232, and CAN, and the A then B sequential trigger for capturing events that only occur in a specific sequence. The B trigger can be set to trigger only when the B event does not occur after A, which is useful for catching missing acknowledgments and protocol timeouts. User-selectable bandwidth limit filters are built in as standard. These preserve the instrument's bandwidth rolloff, flatness, and phase linearity within whatever frequency limit you select. Running a 1GHz scope on a 100MHz signal without a bandwidth limit means the instrument is adding out-of-band noise to every measurement. The selectable limits let you optimize the instrument for the actual signal frequency rather than the probe bandwidth. The 12.1-inch XGA touchscreen is not cosmetic. At 1GHz bandwidth with 40M record length, the amount of waveform data on screen at any one time requires display real estate to be useful. The Wave Inspector panel provides dedicated hardware controls for navigating, zooming, and searching through deep acquisitions without going through menus. Record search and mark lets the instrument automatically scan through a 40M point acquisition for user-defined criteria, tag each occurrence, and navigate between them with front panel controls. For serial bus debug work where a specific packet or error condition buried in a long acquisition needs to be found, that function saves significant time compared to manual scrolling.