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  • Author Author: srutledge
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R&S® MXO 4 Oscilloscope

srutledge

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Community Comments about this Roadtest 
This oscilloscope plus options and accessories has a list price of about $20,000 (US). What makes this product standout out so much?? I'll let some element14 members explain:

  • "The MXO4 manages to combine ridiculous hardware speed, a very quiet front-end, and a very well thought-out user interface in a general-purpose form factor."
  • "It's an awesome scope indeed - some of those specs almost seem impossibly good to be true! I'm sure whoever gets to RoadTest this is going to be really happy about it."
  • "I got to try one out at the R&S Scopetoberfest at [a] local office last month. It had all the options enabled (1.5GHz, AWG, etc). Quite an impressive instrument with an awesome HD display. I'd love to roadtest this instrument."

To read more about what our members think, scroll down to the bottom of this page read the rest of the comments.

Testing Goals
Conduct a comprehensive set of performance tests in order to review its significant capabilities and features. The tests conducted should be of a highly technical nature that an experienced oscilloscope user would value.

Product Variants
There are several versions of this product. You can find them here.

Description
The MXO44-245 is a 4 channel R&S® MXO 4 series oscilloscope with a 13.3-inch high-definition (1,920 x 1,080) display. Many applications, such as embedded systems, three-phase power electronics, automotive electronics, power supply design, and DC-to-DC power converters, require the observation of more than four analogue signals to verify and characterize device performance, and to debug challenging system issues.

Overall, the R&S®MXO 4 series is the first of a new generation of oscilloscopes that excels in both performance and value. The instruments deliver accelerated insight and have a real-time update rate of 4.5 million waveforms/s, meaning engineers can see more infrequent events than with any other instrument. With its 12-bit ADC, the R&S®MXO 4 series has 16 times the resolution of traditional 8-bit oscilloscopes at all sample rates without any compromises for more precise measurements. With a standard acquisition memory of 400 Mpoints on all four channels and an optional 800 Mpts interleaved, the instrument has up to 100 times the standard memory of comparable instruments. R&S®MXO 4 series oscilloscopes sport an impressive 13.3" Full HD capacitive touchscreen and an intuitive user interface with a learning curve of less than 15 minutes. All R&S®MXO 4 series oscilloscopes have the R&S®MXO4-B1 MSO hardware built into every instrument. The MSO option offers the logic probes required to start using the 16 digital channels.

At the heart of each R&S®MXO 4 series oscilloscope is a Rohde&Schwarz-developed application specific integrated circuit (ASIC): MXO-EP (extreme performance). MXO-EP processes 200 Gbit/s to deliver the world’s fastest update rate of up to 4.5 million acquisitions/s. See and capture more of your signal, faster. Find rare signal anomalies quickly. Experience the most responsive oscilloscope in the industry.

MXO-EP ASICs incorporate advanced digital triggering that evaluates the A/D converter samples in the acquisition path in real time. Trigger on small events of less than 1/10000 vertical division that no other oscilloscope can isolate. Choose your own trigger hysteresis. Apply digital filters to suppress noise to get the most precise triggering available.

Measurement accuracy is highly dependent on the components in the signal path, e.g. amplifiers, samplers and A/D converters. The workhorse of the R&S®MXO 4 series is an extremely low noise signal path including a 12 bit ADC. High definition mode (HD) increases vertical resolution to industry best 18 bit architecture.

R&S®MXO 4 series oscilloscopes come equipped with the industry’s deepest standard acquisition memory of 400 Mpoints per channel. Capture up to 80 ms of power up or power down sequences with the highest sample resolution of 200 ps. The memory controller in the MXO-EP ASIC ensures the oscilloscope stays responsive with deep memory.


Features
• 500MHz bandwidth, 4 analogue channel, 16 digital channel
• 12bit ADC, 18bit vertical architecture
• Up to 5Gsample/s sample rate
• Standard memory of 400Mpoints per channel with option for 800Mpoints
• Minimal noise of 104µV at 1GHz with 1mV/div sensitivity
• ±5V offset range with 500µV/div sensitivity
• History and segmented memory to capture up to 1 million acquisitions
• Industry's most sensitive trigger: 1/1000 vertical division
• Best-in-class trigger jitter of just 1ps
• Adjustable digital trigger filters with user-selectable hysteresis
• World’s first oscilloscope with update rate exceeding
• 4.5 million waveforms per second
• Industry-best 18 bit architecture
• Fastest and most accurate spectrum analysis in its class
• Industry’s fastest trigger rearm time of 21 ns
• First in class to incorporate newer digital triggering technology
• Industry’s most sensitive trigger of 1/10 000 div
• First oscilloscope with dual-path protocol analysis
• First in class with R&S®SmartGrid user interface

Contents
• 500 MHZ 4-channel ®MXO 4 series oscilloscope (MXO44-245)
• MX04-B1 option: (two) RT-ZL04 400MHZ logic probes, 8-channel
• EU plug to C13 power cord
• (four) 700MHZ passive voltage probe RT-ZP11
• Safety instructions, manuals

Additional Information
Product Brief
Product Info
Flyer
Datasheet
User Manual
Getting Started Manual
Other Documentation
Downloads
Variants

Important Dates

Begin enrollment: Nov 4, 2022
End enrollment: Dec 9, 2022
Select roadtesters: Jan 18, 2023
Ship unit: Jan 19, 2023
Begin roadtesting:  Jan 26 2023
Element14 follow up: Feb 26 2023
Post reviews by: April 10 2023

Official Roadtesters

  • michaelkellett (review due date Apr 10 2023)
  • shabaz (review due date Apr 10 2023)

RoadTest Forum

Please use this forum post for any questions you may have about this RoadTest.

Terms and Conditions

Click Here to read the Terms and Conditions.

Taxes

  • If you are a U.S.-based roadtester the U.S.1099 rule applies to you and says for prizes that are valued at $660, you will be required to complete an W-9 form and the company will issue you a 1099 form, as income, at the end of the year.
  • If you are not a U.S.based roadtester, it would be up to the individual recipient to determine what the rules are for their country of residence. We cannot dictate or recommend what their tax requirements would be for their respective countries.
RoadTest Reviews
Comments
Anonymous
  • in reply to saadtiwana_int

    It's not working for me at 8:59 GMT.

    image

    MK

  • in reply to Jan Cumps

     Is the "View Entry" page working for you? I am getting an error when I try to access it.

  • For those who are delaying: extended until tomorrow!

  • in reply to a.i.unicorn

    I got similar issues too. Although mine was submitted, I made some updates to the test plan document over Friday evening but when I tried to upload it, it won't let me, even with 6+ hours to go. 

  • Hello, I can’t submit it 5 hours before the end of the submission time, but I have already written the application, how can I submit it?

  •  I think the MXO 4 Oscilloscope is the better product i would like to test because of vast features 

  • in reply to dougw

    Sorry, Doug, I didn't see your comment. Don't know what happened to the notification - perhaps it got lost with all the recent reboots, resyncs, or whatever it is they do to get all the bits of the site working together.

    I'm very familiar with oscilloscopes, having used them on a practically daily basis over 40 years of working as a design engineer, but I wouldn't do it justice because

    a) I'm now retired. In my opinion, this needs to be reviewed by a younger, working engineer (obviously with a reasonable amount of experience), who can demonstrate it doing present day tasks in the kind of areas that the device would be purchased for.
    b) I don't want to do video and, whatever I may personally think about videos (I only rarely decide to watch them), they are a necessary part of the delivery of this kind of reviewing now for a general audience.
    c) I was never any good at the 'paperwork': planning, report writing, and all the organisational things that take you away from the interesting stuff (designing things). I'm not going to sign up to do a lot of it, now that I don't have to, even if the reward at the end is a very fine oscilloscope.
    d) Several other reasons, but you get the drift...

    ...so, I wouldn't like to see me give it a go.

  • in reply to Jan Cumps

    Hi Jan,


    I've got some ideas.. and very glad you are asking. If more people asked on RoadTests, then the answers could be tailored to them from their peers/virtual friends/colleagues.

    (Also in this particular case I'm perhaps shooting myself in the foot, since every applicant will read this, and I have applied too), but it would be awesome to see your review, if I was the judge/decision-maker. 

    I think it's a great mix, you have got a good advantage with signals that show the capabilities of the instrument. I would say, the other advantage for readers is that a review from you is going to be thorough, so find a way to make the decision-maker/judges aware of that, and they will likely trust that you will do more than a newcomer. (Newcomers would find it harder to show that, but we can brainstorm that if a newcomer asks for advice).

     

    There is one thing that I'm certain of (clearly not everyone thinks this way, perhaps I'm wrong but I don't believe so), is put yourself in the customer's shoes, and answer the questions that the customer would have. You are (or will be) literally the world expert on the product by the time you finish the review, and no-one (not even R&S) is better placed to explain why the customer should be using that product, than you. No pressure! : ) (you always clearly handle it).

  • in reply to dougw

    > This instrument is so powerful, it can probably test itself

    True story: I fixed the digital part of a Philips PM3305 storage oscilloscope that way. Its core is an analog scope. The digital/storage part is all on separate boards.

    Both power supply (see a reply earlier to ) and digital part had issues. Power supply was solved with traditional tools (multimeter and brain). The initial digital issues, I solved together with a friend who came over with a Rigol 1052. The rest of the digital issues I resolved by probing the oscilloscope with itself (sparky slang: probe its own clacker).

  • I'm thinking about submitting an application. I'd focus on these use cases:

    • pure analogue/power: behaviour of a GaN FET power design, specificly related to very short deadband and shoot-through
    • timer / mixer and analogue signals (maybe using   ' SDR and its quad mixer)
    • digital protocols, with maybe a mix of analogue if I use an ADC or DAC
    • show SCPI integration and a repeatable LabVIEW measurement setup.

    Thoughts?

  • in reply to jc2048

    This instrument is so powerful, it can probably test itself, but yes, the effort to do a "highly technical review aimed at experienced users" would be monumental. However I would still like to see you give it a go.....Relaxed

  • Very nice scope. I wouldn't be able to do it justice reviewing it, but I do envy whoever ends up with it on their workbench.

  • Wow! While reading the product brief for this instrument I began to think the designers at R&S must have read my mind and realized every item on my dream oscilloscope wish list! The list of features and capabilities seems too good to be true.  Based on what I've read so far it looks like R&S have addressed every shortcoming I've dealt with in oscilloscopes from other major brands.  I am going to apply to Road Test this instrument just to have the chance to verify all of the impressive claims.  If this tool works as well as the literature suggests, it will easily become my top preferred bench instrument for test and measurement.

  • That's an insane piece of kit and a great road test!

  • Hi, 

    Would the B6 option (Arbitrary waveform generator) be included with it? I think having that option included would REALLY open up many more possibilities with this instrument, from a road-test perspective. This is especially considering that many people don't have function generators at home, or at-least not capable of generating signals with that much bandwidth. 

    -Saad

    p.s I am curious why the Digital Pattern Generator channels were dropped in the MX04?

  • Oh wow, wish I had the need (and knowledge) to use a bit of kit like this

  • in reply to michaelkellett

    The units do include PK1, along with B1 (MSO) and 500MHz bandwidth.  Excited to see the RoadTests!

    -Rich

  • Wow! This is not the kind of instruments I expected to find in a RoadTest...I'm thinking about how complex and interesting the RoadTest plan should be to earn the assignment! It will be a challenge, of course. Sunglasses

  • in reply to baldengineer

    I saw your video when it came out on youtube. Excellent content. Infact I find all your videos very informative and I am gradually going through all of them. Thanks for sharing the excellent content, and looking forward to more!! Slight smile

    Regards,
    Saad