Higher Bandwidth Current Measurement for Engineers

For engineers working on high-power systems like motor drives, EV powertrains, or switching power supplies, accurate current measurement without breaking the circuit is a core requirement. Teledyne LeCroy introduced the CP1000 current probe at APEC 2026 to address that requirement.

The CP1000 supports up to 1000 A rms continuous and peak currents up to 1400 A. But the specification that generated the most conversation was bandwidth. Most competitive products in this current range top out around 10 kHz. The CP1000 goes from DC to 1.5 MHz, which matters more than it might seem at first glance. Additional specs worth noting: rise time is 235 ns typical, AC noise at 20 MHz bandwidth limit is 10 mA, and the probe offers two output voltage settings at 0.005 V/A and 0.05 V/A with a minimum sensitivity of 100 mA/div. The 6-meter cable gives engineers some practical flexibility when working around large power setups.

The Teledyne LeCroy team explained it this way: when engineers calculate switching losses, they multiply the current and voltage waveforms. If the current probe’s bandwidth is too narrow, it artificially slows the rise time, making losses appear larger than they actually are. As one engineer at the booth put it, “By having a higher bandwidth probe, you can get a more accurate representation of how fast you’re switching, and you can make better efficiency measurements and loss measurements.”

That point connects to a broader issue the team raised about oscilloscope measurements generally: “A lot of people who are doing oscilloscope measurements have this assumption that what I’m seeing on the oscilloscope is what’s happening on my system. We spend a lot of time explaining to people that’s not what you’re seeing in your system. That’s what you’re seeing after it goes through the probe, after it goes through what’s happening on the front end of the oscilloscope. It’s a total system measurement. Engineers don’t care about that. They want to know what’s happening.”

The CP1000 uses Hall effect technology, so there’s no need to break the line, unlike current transformers or Rogowski coils, which remain the workaround most engineers are using today. The maximum conductor diameter the probe can accommodate is 33 mm. It connects via Teledyne LeCroy’s ProBus interface for automatic scaling, degauss, and autozero functions on compatible oscilloscopes, and it’s available now at a list price just under $9,000.