Keysight Technologies has announced two new oscilloscopes for 1.6T optical transceiver testing – a single optical channel DCA-M and dual optical channel DCA-M sampling oscilloscopes.
Designed to deliver the highest optical measurement sensitivity and integrated clock recovery up to 120 GBaud, the instruments specifically target the rigorous demands of 1.6T transceiver optical testing and manufacturing of next-generation optical interconnects for data centres’ AI clusters.
The rapid deployment of AI data centre networks utilising 1.6T optical interconnects presents significant measurement challenges due to the extreme data rates and stringent signal integrity requirements. Engineers need to characterise and validate the performance of transceivers across a broad range of challenging operating conditions, requiring precise test equipment with exceptional bandwidth, low noise, and high sensitivity.
“Keysight is a long standing and reliable partner as a critical test technologies provider with high performance and quality,” said TeraHop CMO Osa Mok. “This new line of Keysight sampling oscilloscopes will help to accelerate 1.6 Tbps optical solutions deployment for a new generation of AI compute networking applications.”
“Enabling next-generation data centres and AI clusters, raises the bar for time-to-market and performance of R&D and manufacturing solutions,” said Keysight Technologies Joachim Peerlings. “We are proud of our progress in supporting the industry as it advances AI infrastructure, laying the foundation for future generations to innovate in new and transformative ways.”
In manufacturing, automated testing must be efficient, scalable, and precise to validate critical parameters across large volumes with high throughput and yield while ensuring performance to data centre requirements and maintaining compliance with industry standards.
The new DCA-M sampling oscilloscopes are part of Keysight’s 1.6T portfolio of end-to-end solutions to address higher transmission rates required by AI and machine learning. The DCA-M sampling oscilloscopes provide high-speed optical signal analysis at up to 240 Gbps/lane, delivering:
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Maximise measurement margin – High sensitivity, low jitter, wide precise bandwidth and leading-edge measurement science maximise measurement margin. Less than 15 µW optical channel noise and less than 90 fs of intrinsic time-based jitter preserve critical measurement margin at the very high data rates, and challenging signal conditions of 1.6T transceivers enable R&D and manufacturing engineers to meet tight specifications and ensure design reliability with greater throughput.
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Minimise test system complexity and ensure compliance – Integrated clock recovery supports baud rates up to 120 GBd, enabling the DCA-M to recover the clock at the full data rate, as prescribed by the standards, and eliminating the need to configure and route a separate sub-rate signal for clocking.
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Optimise production test efficiency and throughput – FlexOTO Optical Test Optimisation software integrates seamlessly with DCA-M to maximize instrument utilisation and test efficiency while reducing total cost-of-test. FlexOTO is built on the industry-leading FlexDCA measurement science platform ensuring the highest quality optical waveform analysis.
The DCA-M Sampling Oscilloscopes will be demonstrated at the OFC 2025 conference to be held in San Francisco.
