An ongoing effort to set new benchmarks for the industry is a common thread among a trio of recent announcements from test and measurement solutions provider Tektronix Inc.
First, there’s an enhanced battery test system designed to meet the rapidly evolving demands for higher power battery technologies in the electric vehicle (EV) industry and elsewhere, which picks up right where we left off in our recent story about the company’s battery testers as a step toward a cleaner future.
The release of an active single-ended probe with a 7 meter cable is part of efforts by Tektronix to set test and measurement industry benchmarks. Source: Tektronix Inc.According to Tektronix, the EA BTS 10300 offers 300 kW in a single 42U-high rack and occupies just 6.5 square feet of production floor space. Boasting a 2,000 VDC capacity for high-voltage EV battery tests, the system can supply and sink up to 2,400 A per rack, reaching a total capacity of up to 30,720 A. Its bidirectional power supply with SiC-based switching reduces electrical costs, regenerating power back to the grid while also minimizing HVAC expenses due to low heat generation. There’s also a path for scalability: deploying parallel racks unlocks a massive 3.84 MW of testing capability.
Then there’s TekHSI, a high-speed interface presented as a new firmware capability on the company’s MSO 4B, 5 Series and 6 Series models. Tektronix said the solutions require code optimization to achieve high data transfer rates, relying on standard commands for programmable instruments (SCPI) such as curve and curvestream to move data from instrument to computer. This makes it difficult for test and measurement engineers to maximize the bandwidth of the physical link their instruments are shipped with (typically 1 Gbps Ethernet). The abstractions provided in TekHSI offer an alternative designed to be easy to implement, use and scale.
Finally, there’s what Tektronix is calling the “only commercially available active single-ended probe utilizing a seven-meter probe cable.” This may sound like they’re making a big deal out of a small detail, but the addition of an extra meter (compared to comparable probes on the market) has its place. With flying probe testers, for example, routing through automated systems often requires extra length. This is also valuable for any situation where the device under test (DUT) needs to be further from the oscilloscope.
The TAP1500L cable builds off the success of the company’s IsoVu probe technology, which virtually eliminates common mode interference using optical isolation. It also offers the same specs as its smaller cousin, the TAP1500. These include ≥1.5 GHz bandwidth, less than 267 ps rise time and ≤1 pF input capacitance, ensuring accurate signal acquisition for high-speed designs.
