Behind the Scenes of Tektronix's New 5 Series MSO Mixed Signal Oscilloscope

At first glance, you can see that the newly launched 5-series mixed signal oscilloscope (MSO) from Tektronix is ​​significantly different from other oscilloscopes. First, the screen occupies 85% of the front panel, while the screen only occupies about 50% in most oscilloscopes. Second, the number of ports is more tolerant, that is, the number of analog inputs, with a maximum of 8 analog inputs, while most oscilloscopes generally have only 4. Let's follow the test and measurement editor to learn about the relevant content.

When you turn on the oscilloscope and connect it to the device under test, you will find that this is not an improved version of last year's oscilloscope, but a completely new end-to-end redesign. From cars, airplanes, home appliances to the Internet of Things and other fields, the embedded systems in all devices are becoming more and more complex, and the demand for test and measurement equipment is becoming higher and higher. On the one hand, more and more applications require more than four analog input channels, and the integration of digital channels also requires higher levels. The user interface must also be updated to adapt to the world's most popular usage mode, that is, touch mode. Of course, performance and signal viewing capabilities must also be improved.

Based on extensive research into the changing needs of the modern technical engineer, it became clear to Tektronix product planners that meeting these changing expectations would require more than just upgrading to a mid-range oscilloscope series (between 350 MHz and 2 GHz bandwidth). So, we undertook the most significant development effort in Tektronix's 71-year history, assembling a large project team of electronics engineers, software developers, user interface experts, and industrial designers to redefine and redesign the oscilloscope.

Throughout the development process, we have made a complete update. The 5 Series MSO features a new ASIC, a new front-end amplifier with lower noise, a new hardware architecture, a new software architecture, and a new user interface. The new 5 Series MSOs have a number of industry firsts, including reconfigurable oscilloscope inputs, models with 6 or 8 analog input channels, a 15.6-inch capacitive touch display, a user interface designed from the beginning for touch, and an optional Windows operating system.

It would be interesting to have a journalist in the design project team to write about the "Soul of the New Oscilloscope." Here, we interviewed several key members of the design project team to talk about the challenges they faced and how they overcame them. Below is a Q&A interview with the key people responsible for Tektronix mid-range oscilloscopes, designers and engineers, which involved multiple Tektronix departments. For clarity and length, their answers have been lightly edited.

What was the reason for developing a completely new platform?

Gary Waldo, Product Planner, Mid-Range Oscilloscope Division: My job is to work with the engineering staff to plan what needs to be done with the next generation of products. I represent the voice of both the customer and the core team. There are new application requirements in the market that we need to be able to meet that the current products and platforms cannot meet. We know that we have to develop a completely new platform to enable these new capabilities, modernize the product, provide the functions that customers are currently looking for, and make it simple and intuitive to operate. In order to meet various customer needs, the development of a new platform is necessary.

Everything about this platform is new, including the user interface. Many of the programs I've developed in the past have had user interfaces that have evolved from previous ones. This is probably the first completely new user interface in more than a decade, and we did this because we wanted to take our customers one step further and make our products as simple, intuitive, and easy to use as possible. We know our customers are busy, and we don't want them to worry about learning or relearning how to use an instrument every time they use it.

Please introduce the new ASIC

Technical Director Bart Mooyman-Beck: My team developed the chip that goes into the 5 Series MSO, and we started designing it four years ago. We call this chip the TEK049. It’s basically an oscilloscope on a chip, and it has all the features you would expect from an oscilloscope: ADC, digital signal processing, rasterizer, display formatting, that’s the core of the design.

The TEK049 ASIC is the heart of the 5 Series Oscilloscope. With 400 million transistors, it is an "Oscilloscope on a Chip"

This design has 400 million transistors. This is something that Tektronix has never done before, and we couldn't do it completely on our own. So we called in partners and outsourcing companies to help. Managing the development was quite a challenge. We mobilized resources all over the world, running 24 hours a day, sometimes seven days a week. We pulled out all the stops and used the entire infrastructure we had to develop this product. We had layers of responsibility for chip development, senior directors writing contracts, high-level interactions with partners and suppliers, and then engineers handling the day-to-day activities with partners, and everyone did their part to successfully develop this product.

This internal poster highlights the main features of the latest TEK049, indicating that it is a "full CMOS front-end acquisition chip"

TEK049 is a breakthrough in many ways. The most challenging and exciting part for us was developing the high-fidelity part of the chip. The ADC is unique and was previously blank. We integrated the DSP engine into the chip. The algorithm design is also unique. We were able to attract top talent because when we visited various regions in the world where this product was developed, people from all over the world would say we want to be part of this solution. With this group of people and our partners, we can develop the highest fidelity chip in the world.

What's the story behind FlexChannel™ inputs?

Gary Waldo: Our goal is to give customers flexibility. We offer up to eight Flex channel inputs. It can be configured as eight analog channels and zero digital channels, it can be configured as seven analog channels and eight digital channels, it can be configured as six analog channels and 16 digital channels. You see the pattern here. In a traditional MSO, you either get 16 digital channels or none, and the number of channels provided to the customer is almost always the wrong number.

FlexChannel input can be one analog channel or eight digital channels. Its design goal is to allow customers to more flexibly determine the appropriate oscilloscope channel configuration based on their needs.

Steve Herring, Software Project Leader: The difference in this product is that the digital channels were designed in with the analog from the beginning. Digital channels are no longer an afterthought. In the past, we added digital channels to a traditional analog oscilloscope. The 5 Series MSO was designed from the beginning to support both analog and digital in one front end. Analog and digital are equal in this product, same front end, same signal path, same hardware, and same software.

What challenges did you face in fitting up to eight analog channels and up to 64 digital channels into the same space as four analog channels?

Brian Mantel, Head of Hardware Design: To debug some of the issues we were having, we used some other products. In fact, we wish we had used the 5 Series to debug it ourselves because it was so much easier to use. We went out of our way to put eight analog channels into a form factor that was similar to existing products. It's a truly amazing design achievement, and packing so much circuitry into such a small area is a huge challenge. Also, there was a lot of mechanical design involved to make sure we could cool everything properly. Cooling was also a big challenge.

Trying to route all the analog and digital channels to the ASIC was also a design challenge. We had to take careful steps to ensure that all the timing was accurate and that we didn't have any digital noise crosstalk in our analog signals.

Speaking of noise, how do you achieve low noise on the front end?

Brian Mantel: Eliminating system noise is a particular challenge because our front end is extremely sensitive so that our customers can see signals in detail. They have to get very high measurement accuracy, so they are very susceptible to noise. We did a lot of work to make sure this is an ultra-high resolution instrument.

We made sure we had a low noise design first, and then we had to deal with all the mechanical shielding. When we were prototyping the design, I used about $300 of copper tape to do the shielding to make sure we had a quality product that we could manufacture. We ended up with a very good low noise design.

The design project team used about $300 worth of copper tape to design a mechanical shielding solution for the front-end input.

How has the software structure changed to accommodate features such as FlexChannel input and optional Windows?

Shane Arnold, Software Architect: FlexChannels has probably had the biggest impact on the structure of the software. We previously developed products that were static in configuration, and now the number of channels managed by the software depends on the configuration. Being able to configure generic channels is both an opportunity to help customers solve problems, but also a huge challenge because we have to solve structural problems.

This has a lot of benefits for future product development, because we can handle features like FlexChannels because of this structure. There are applications that we couldn't cater to before, but now we can with this new software structure. Because there are all kinds of modular components in the instrument, the software itself has to reflect this modularity. Each of the different devices embedded in this product has an associated software component, so we can develop a component-based software structure.

By implementing this new cross-platform code base, we can build a software architecture that runs equally well on Windows and other operating systems. This product allows customers to choose between open systems (based on Windows) and proprietary systems for the first time. Some of our customers prefer proprietary systems because they are virus-free, have no management issues and management overhead. It is a purpose-built system that is only used for measurement. But some customers want an open system so that they can install other applications and use Windows.

Does this software structure prepare users for the future?

Steve Herring: We've certainly incorporated the best of our legacy products, and certainly Tektronix has learned a lot over the years, but the software architecture is completely new and designed for the future. It's designed to be plug-and-play. Customers will be able to load new applications and new features without having to relaunch the oscilloscope. They'll be able to load and use them at runtime. This is not an afterthought, this is not a patch on an existing platform, we've designed a platform that will be usable for years to come.

What challenges did you face when building new software architectures?

Mark Smith, Software Manager, Analytical Project Team: There were three main areas of challenges. One was that from a product development cycle perspective, it was quite challenging to complete such a large amount of work within the time limit. Another challenge was that as we entered a certain stage of product development, the project team size increased significantly. This was a challenge because there were new people, they had to be educated on the new system, and they had to be trained and able to make a productive contribution. The third challenge was measuring performance. One of the new features and functions within the system is that we want to analyze data sets in depth, so if you want to process more data, you have to spend more time. We want to provide higher analytical fidelity without significantly changing the time to get information. We spent a lot of time optimizing the system performance to achieve this goal.

The new oscilloscope has a streamlined and stylish appearance. How is this achieved?

Steve Lafrance, Visual Designer: I was involved in industrial design and user interface design to take our current product, which we've been using for the last 10 years, and elevate it to something that's much more modern looking. That required a paradigm shift, moving from a button-oriented product to a touchscreen-oriented product. We were moving from a small-screen product to a large-screen product, and that required a rethinking of everything we had, including the physical look of the product. And then, because we were moving away from a button-oriented product, that required a change inside the product as well. So the change was across the board. We had quite a few challenges on the design side.

We went through a lot of iterations to figure out what would make sense for the client. We went from core models to actual full-scale drawings to full prototypes that people could see. It's one thing when it's a drawing, and it might look really nice and good. It's another thing to actually use it, and it's another thing to take a prototype and put software in it.

This was an early prototype with one knob per channel, as that has always been the tradition for oscilloscopes, but everyone who looked at it said that model was not feasible for more than 4 channels, so we went with a multiplexed control model for the final product.

Rob Kreitzer, Director of Mechanical Engineering: What people always like to know, and other engineers especially like, is the appearance of a product because it can be the icing on the cake of a good product. And this is something that takes a lot of effort. In the end, it looks simple and elegant, but in fact, it takes a lot of time, effort, and engineering design work.

One thing I'm very proud of is that we established a vision to create a product that looks like a piece of technological art. Considering the appearance as one of the features of an oscilloscope is a lot of work. No one wants to focus on the appearance at the beginning, but the first impression the customer sees it does have an impact. We need to make it look stylish and technological.

What's the story with the foldable legs?

Gary Waldo: When we were developing the industrial design of this instrument, we did several rounds of customer testing, and we built a prototype that weighed about the same as the final product. We had a customer do a physical evaluation. When this customer tilted the prototype forward, the front feet collapsed. Because of this, we had to take steps to ensure that the front feet would not collapse when the oscilloscope was tilted forward. In the new design, when the feet are under weight, they will not collapse. Once the weight is no longer on the feet, you can simply flip the feet back and remove them.

The locking mechanism prevents the forefoot from collapsing when the 5 Series MSO is tilted forward.

Rob Kreitzer: As we were working on the feet, we found that customers wanted multiple foot positions. Some wanted to use the scope flat, some wanted the standard flip-out feet, and some wanted to place the scope high on a workbench and not have screen glare. So we added a rear foot that eliminates screen glare, so that we have one front foot and one rear foot that can work independently.

Why did you decide to develop a touch user interface?

Steve Herring: From a test and measurement industry perspective, this new user interface is disruptive. User interface design is a challenge. Everyone has their own view on the user interface and how it should work. We have a lot of relatively new customers, younger customers who are used to using smartphones, and we also have a lot of older customers who are used to front panel buttons and knobs, one knob for each control function. Of course, being able to meet everyone's needs is a huge challenge.

We've been stuck in a dilemma: we've got the new big screen that's easy to read and has a high resolution, but part of the front panel has been moved to the side, with the familiar buttons and knobs that people are used to using on the front panel. They reach out and push the button or tap the knob, just as they expect. We've taken the best of what we've become used to and added the best features of today's modern instruments. We've had the best of both worlds in one product.

One of the things we do with touchscreen interfaces is put what the user needs right where their eyes are, right where they're looking. They don't have to look away from the screen to find a soft key or a menu somewhere else. They just tap what they see and they get the result right there. For most interfaces, tap to do this, pinch to do that, and we emulate all of those gestures. The user doesn't have to start over and wait the next time they come back and wonder how this is different from a smartphone. We followed all the design standards for touch interfaces.

What did you learn about the user interface during the usability testing?

Bridget Fisher, Senior Software Engineer/UI Lead: When we first started, we had an outside consulting firm that gave us ideas for how we should lay out the layout and recommended font sizes, and we took that and used that information. In our first usability test, we found that no one could read the UI. People came in and said, I don't have my glasses. Based on that feedback, we increased the font size for all items, and when we tested it a second time, no one complained.

We have a usability test where customers are not allowed to use the front panel, keyboard, or mouse. They have to use the touchscreen for everything. When we first started this project, it seemed like the touchscreen was just a nice touch, something we added because people thought they should. But in our testing, we found that customers actually like using the touchscreen. I was surprised to hear that some customers said that with our previous oscilloscopes, they had no place for a keyboard or mouse. The touchscreen frees up bench space for other things.

In our user testing, the only thing that was not intuitive for users, because they had not experienced it before, was the double-click to launch the configuration menu. But after we taught them the first time, they no longer had a problem with it. Because of this, we provided a very simple tutorial on all gestures. I was very surprised to find that they quickly learned the user interface, even without any instruction.

5 Series MSO features a new user interface

How did you make the user interface fast and responsive?

Giao Tran, Software and User Experience Manager: During early usability testing, we found that customers wanted to use the touch screen like a mobile device, supporting gestures such as zooming, sliding, etc. We found that these gestures were very challenging to implement because the software runs on real-time signals, not fixed objects on a web page. This required our engineers to be creative and improve the waveform display algorithm to ensure that the instrument operates smoothly under touch control.

We paid special attention to making the touch interface responsive, which is not easy when dealing with real-time signals.

What was your best experience with this project?

Shane Arnold: We hit a milestone where we were launching a new system that was a product that Tektronix had a long history with. We called it the Green Worm, which was a reference to the old CRT-based oscilloscopes where the traces on the screen were green. So the first time this instrument could do an A/D conversion of a waveform and put it on the screen with a triggered waveform view, we called it the Green Worm. It was my birthday, and I was working late into the night, and that’s when the Green Worm appeared, and I’ll never forget that day.

Gary Waldo: During the development process, many customers who signed non-disclosure agreements saw the instrument and the feedback was very positive. They were very pleased with our new industrial design, the user interface, the performance, the additional channels, the FlexChannels concept, and the optional Windows operating system. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive. I am particularly proud of the user interface because I led the user interface design effort. It was a long, hard job, and we rebuilt everything in the instrument to get it to where it is today.

Bridget Fisher: I am very happy with user interface design because I like to make people happy. When people see the 5 Series MSO for the first time, they may be stunned because there are things they have not seen before, but after a while, a smile will appear on their face.

The above is an introduction to the story behind Tektronix's new 5 Series MSO mixed-signal oscilloscope in test and measurement. If you want to know more related information, please pay more attention to eeworld. eeworld Electronic Engineering will provide you with more complete, detailed and updated information.