Arbitrary Waveform Generators Datasheet

Features & Benefits

• Leading edge AWG performance
• Sample Rates up to 50 GS/s
• –80 dBc Spurious Free Dynamic Range
• 10 bits vertical resolution
• 16 GSample waveform memory
• Complete solution for wideband RF signal generation in a single box
• Direct generation of wideband signals with carriers up to 20 GHz, removing the need for external RF conversion
• Simulate real-world analog effects on high speed digital data streams
• Model signal impairments up to speeds of 12.5 GBs
• Generate high precision RF signals
• Spurious Free Dynamic Range performance better than -80 dBc
• Create high speed baseband signals for optical transmission with the vertical resolution to handle higher order complex modulation
• 10 bits of vertical resolution at a sample rate of 50 GS/s
• Create long waveforms scenarios without building complex sequences
• Up to 16 GSamples of Waveform Memory plays 320 ms of data at 50 GS/s
• Synchronize multiple units to achieve a multi-channel high speed AWG system
• Fully operational without external PC
• Built-in display and buttons make it possible to quickly select, edit and play waveforms directly from the front panel of the AWG
• Simulate real-world environments by playing back captured signals
• Waveforms captured with Oscilloscopes or Real-Time Spectrum Analyzers can be played back, edited or re-sampled on the AWG
• Smooth transition from simulation to the real-world testing environment
• Waveform vectors imported from third-party tools such as MATLAB, Excel, and others

Applications

• Wideband RF/MW for Communications and Defense Electronics
• Output wideband RF signals up to 20 GHz
• Validation and compliance testing of High Speed Silicon & Communications Devices
• Easily stress test receivers with a wide array of signal impairments
• Coherent Optical Research
• Generation of high Baud rate baseband signals with higher order, complex modulation
• Leading edge research in electronics, physics & chemistry
• High speed, low jitter signal source generates uniquely specified analog signals, fast pulses, data streams and clocks

Unparalleled Performance

The need for high-performance arbitrary waveform generation is broad and spans a wide array of applications. The industry-leading AWG70000A Series arbitrary waveform generator (AWG) represents the cutting edge in performance, sample rate, signal fidelity, and waveform memory. The ability to create, generate, or replicate either ideal, distorted, or “real-life” signals is essential in design, testing and operations of some of the world’s most complex data communications systems. The AWG70000A Series of AWGs, with up to 50 GS/s and 10-bit vertical resolution, delivers the industry's best signal stimulus solution for ever-increasing measurement challenges. This allows for easy generation of very complex signals and complete control over signal characteristics.

Seamless transition from simulation to generation

If a waveform can be defined or captured, then the AWG70000A can generate the signal. The creation of the waveform can happen in many ways. Application software like RFXpress and SerialXpress, which are optimized to work specifically the Tektronix AWG family, provide specific waveform creation capabilities, while 3rd party solutions like MATLAB, Excel, or others, have the flexibility to create any waveform you desire. Waveforms created in any of these packages can be imported and played back in the AWG70000A, seamlessly transitioning from the simulation world to the real world.

Additionally, any signals captured on Tektronix oscilloscopes or Real-Time Spectrum analyzers can be loaded into the AWG70000A and played back. With the use of the RFXpress software, the captured signal can also be modified or changed to meet any specific requirements that may exist.

Wideband RF Signal Generation

Creating RF signals is becoming more and more complex, making it difficult for RF engineers to accurately create the signals required for conformance and margin testing. When combined with RFXpress, the AWG70000A Series can address these tough design challenges. RFXpress is a software package that digitally synthesizes modulated baseband, IF, and RF signals taking signal generation to new levels by fully exploiting the wideband signal generation capabilities of the AWG70000A Series arbitrary waveform generators (AWGs). Together, the AWG70000A and RFXpress provide engineers with “bandwidth on demand”, which is the ability to generate wideband modulated signals anywhere within the 20 GHz frequency range.

The latest digital RF technologies often exceed the capabilities of other test instruments because of the need to generate the wide-bandwidth and fast-changing signals that are increasingly seen in many RF applications such as radar, RF comms, OFDM, and UWB. When used in conjunction with RFXpress, the AWG70000A Series supports a wide range of modulation formats and simplifies the task of creating complex RF waveforms. The AWG70000A Series instruments provide customers with ways to generate fully modulated baseband, intermediate frequency (IF) signals, or directly generated RF waveforms up to 20 GHz.

Radar Signal Creation

Generating advanced radar signals often demands exceptional performance from an AWG in terms of sample rate, dynamic range, and memory. The Tektronix AWG70000A Series sets a new industry standard for advanced radar signal generation, by delivering wide modulation bandwidths up to 20 GHz. With a sample rate of up to 50 GS/s the AWG70000A Series can directly generate RF signals never before possible from an AWG. In instances where IQ generation is desired, the AWG70000A offers the ability to oversample the signal, thereby improving signal quality with its outstanding SFDR performance

The AWG700000A and RFXpress are the perfect solution for creating complex radar signals. Users get the ultimate flexibility in creating custom radar pulse suites. Modulation types such as LFM, Barker and Polyphase Codes, Step FM, and Nonlinear FM are easily created using the AWG, and the flexibility of RFXpress enables the creation of waveforms requiring customer-defined modulation. The combination AWG and RFXpress solution also has the ability to generate pulse trains with staggered PRI to resolve range and doppler ambiguity, frequency hopping for Electronic Counter-Counter Measures (ECCM), and pulse-to-pulse amplitude variation to simulate Swerling target models including antenna scan patterns, clutter, and multipath effects.

Environment Signal Generation

The mission-critical nature of many radar signals requires that they coexist with standards-based commercial signals sharing the same spectrum without performance degradation. To meet this expectation, a radar designer has to thoroughly test all the corner cases at the design/debug stage. The AWG70000A and RFXpress (with optional Environment plug-in) offers extreme flexibility to define and create these worst-case scenarios.

You can specify up to 25 signals to define your environment, including WiMAX, WiFi, GSM, GSM-EDGE, EGPRS 2A, EGPRS2B, CDMA, W-CDMA, DVB-T, Noise, and CW Radar. This plug-in also allows you to seamlessly import signals from other RFXpress plug-ins (including Radar, Generic Signal, etc.), as well as from Matlab® and from Tektronix spectrum analyzers and oscilloscopes, into your environment. You can also configure PHY parameters of your standard-specific signals. You can define the carrier frequency, power, start time, and duration for all the signals in your environment, so you have full control over the way these signals interact/interfere with each other.

Generic OFDM Creation

In today's wireless world, OFDM is becoming the modulation method of choice for transmitting large amounts of digital data over short and medium distances. The need for wide bandwidths and multiple carriers create challenges for engineers who need to create OFDM signals to test their RF receivers. The AWG70000A Series, when coupled with RFXpress, allows users to configure every part of the OFDM signal definition. Engineers can build signals symbol-by-symbol to create a complete OFDM frame or let the RFXpress software choose default values for some signal aspects. The combined AWG/RFXpress solution supports a variety of data coding formats that include Reed Solomon, Convolution, and Scrambling. Users also have the ability to define each subcarrier in the symbol which can be configured independently for type, modulation, and base data. The RFXpress software gives visibility into all aspects of the OFDM signal by providing a symbol table that gives a summary of all the carriers in the selected symbol. OFDM packets/frames can be built by specifying the spacing between the symbols/frames and parts of the OFDM packets can be stressed by adding gated noise.

High-speed Serial Signal Generation

Serial signals are made up entirely of binary data– simple ones and zeros. As clock rates have increased these simple ones and zeros have begun to look more like analog waveforms because analog events are embedded in the digital data. The zero rise time and the perfectly flat tops of textbook digital signals no longer represent reality. Electronic environments have noise, jitter, crosstalk, distributed reactances, power supply variations, and other shortcomings. Each takes its toll on the signal. A real-world digital “square wave” rarely resembles its theoretical counterpart. Since the AWG70000A Series is an analog waveform source, it is the perfect single-box solution that is used to create digital data streams and mimic the analog imperfections that occur in real-world environments. The AWG70000A Series uses direct synthesis techniques to allow engineers to create signals that simulate the effects of propagation through a transmission line. Rise times, pulse shapes, delays, and aberrations can all be controlled with the AWG70000A Series instruments. When used in conjunction with the SerialXpress software package, engineers are provided control over every aspect of their digital signals reaching speeds of up to 12.5 Gb/s. This is exactly what is needed for rigorous receiver testing requirements.

SerialXpress enables AWG70000A Series instruments to create a variety of digital data impairments such as jitter (Random, Periodic, Sinusoidal), noise, pre/de-emphasis, duty cycle distortion, Inter-symbol Interference (ISI), Duty Cycle Distortion (DCD), and Spread Spectrum Clocking (SSC). The transmission environments of both board and cables can be emulated using touchstone files uploaded into SerialXpress. The AWG70000A and SerialXpress solution also provides base pattern waveforms for many of today's high-speed serial applications such as SATA, Display Port, SAS, PCI-E, USB, and Fibre Channel.

For high-speed serial applications the AWG70000A Series offers the industry's best solution for addressing challenging signal stimulus issues faced by digital designers who need to verify, characterize, and debug complex digital designs. The file-based architecture uses direct synthesis to create complex data streams and provides users with the simplicity, repeatability, and flexibility required to solve the toughest signal generation challenges in high-speed serial communication applications.

LXI Class C

Using the LXI Web Interface, you can connect to the AWG70000A Series through a standard web browser by simply entering the AWG's IP address in the address bar of the browser. The web interface enables viewing of instrument status and configuration, as well as status and modification of network settings. All web interaction conforms to the LXI Class C specification.

Performance You Can Count On

Depend on Tektronix to provide you with performance you can count on. In addition to industry-leading service and support, this product comes backed by a standard one-year warranty.