Two new optical modules for the Tektronix DSA8300 sampling oscilloscope offer the industry’s highest sensitivity and lowest noise, helpful for analyzing 400G designs moving into production. Tektronix also announced enhanced support for the latest 400G PAM4 TDECQ measurements with a software package optimized for 4 channel parallel processing for high throughput manufacturing test.

“As 400G designs move into production, our customers are looking for ways to improve manufacturing yield and cost of test, which all starts with confidence in test results and the ability to quickly and accurately separate good components from bad ones,” said Sarah Boen, general manager, Performance Oscilloscopes, Tektronix. “With the industry’s lowest noise and highest sensitivity, our solution delivers insights that improve yields and throughput on optical components and interconnects.”

When installed in DSA8300 sampling oscilloscopes, the new 80C20 and 80C21 optical modules for 56 GBd PAM4 and NRZ are said to offer the industry’s best noise performance with 9 µW optical noise. The two-channel 80C21 enables optical manufacturing test engineers to double throughput and capacity. If a device fails, Tektronix offers a comprehensive set of enhanced PAM4 analysis tools to decompose signal content for noise and jitter to help engineers understand the underlying problem.

To keep pace with demands for more bandwidth in data centers, the optical industry is rapidly making the move to 400G and PAM4. However, production engineers face challenges to keep per device test cost low due to lower signal to noise ratio, reduced signal amplitude and a more than 10x increase in the number of tests. Tektronix DSA8300-based sampling solutions help lower test costs with the industry’s highest bandwidth, highest sensitivity and with shortened test times.

The 80C20 and 80C21 optical modules and 400G test software enhancements will be available beginning in April 2018.

Tektronix Inc., 14150 SW Karl Braun Drive P.O. Box 500 Beaverton, OR 97077, https://www.tek.com/wired-communications/400g-pam4-testing