Optical-To-Electrical Converters Boost Sampling Scopes' Capabilities

As a result of a recent agreement, photodetector technology from Picometrix, Ann Arbor, MI, will be embedded in instrumentation from Tektronix. First fruits of the deal are the ORS20 and SD-43 optical-to-electrical (O/E) converters. Both are broad-wavelength, multimode-input units that are coupled to a complete package of internal communication templates, masks and automatic measurements within Tektronix's 11800C and CSA803C sampling oscilloscopes. Now users can test optical signals across all of the fiber-optic transmission windows of interest using a single optical interface. The units range from 700 nm to 1650 nm with 62.5-µm multimode inputs. They are said to offer accurate characterizing, debugging and verifying for standard compliance of Gigabit Ethernet, Fibre Channel and SONET/SDH signals.