Picotest
Picotest P2102A 2-Port 50 ohm Transmission Line PDN Probe
Picotest P2102A 2-Port 50 ohm Transmission Line PDN Probe
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The Picotest P2102A is a referred to as a 'browser' probe for its ability to easily and quickly be moved from point-to-point/rail-to-rail simply by reseating the probe points. The probe achieves a very low inductance at the tip to mitigate space constraints on a dense PCB, while eliminating the need to add additional SMA connections or other test points necessary for impedance measurements. It is especially useful when there are multiple rails to assess and there is not time or PCB iterations available to provide test point implementations for each. Repeated measurements are simplified because connection is by simply touching the tip to existing output capacitor pads. The P2102A comes with 4 swappable probe tips allowing measurement across a variety of SMD packages such as 1206, 0805, 0603, or 0402. The P2102A probe tips are available as 1X, 2X, 5X, or 10X attenuations. This allows flexibility for users to measure across a wide range of voltages. As an example, the upside of the 2X probe is that it can measure 6.5VDC without DC blocks. The tradeoff is the attenuation increases the impedance floor. In short, this 2-port P2102A probe is best suited for VRM, power plane, and decoupling measurements. A power added benefit is that you can use Non-Invasive Stability Measurement (NISM) to assess power supply's stability at the same time as you assess the PDN.
The 2-port probe allows transient step load browsing since it can be used to transmit a load current step through one port, while measuring the voltage response from the other port, simultaneously. The probe can also be used to inject noise for the assessment of sensitivity to the power supply for sensitive circuits such as clocks and LNAs.
The Picotest P2102A is compatible with all 50 ohm instruments, including vector network analyzers (VNAs), oscilloscopes, and spectrum analyzers.
The Picotest P2102Ais designed to work with the traditional 2-port shunt-through impedance setup, including the J2102B common mode transformer or J2113A ground isolator which eliminate the DC ground loop present on most instruments. A source power amplifier such as the OMICRON Lab B-AMP 12 (OL000168) can help measure ultra-low impedance magnitudes.
What's a Transmission Line Probe
Transmission line probes are a special type of passive probe that replaces the high impedance probe cable found in a traditional passive probe with a precision transmission line that has a characteristic impedance that matches the oscilloscope's input (50 ohms). This greatly reduces the input capacitance to a fraction of a picofarad, minimizing the loading of high frequency signals. The probes are referred to as 'PDN' probes, because of their effective use in measuring the low and ultra-low impedances found in power distribution networks.
The input impedance of the Picotest probes remains nearly constant over their entire frequency range. A traditional ÷10 passive probe has a high input impedance at DC; however, this impedance drops rapidly with frequency, passing below the input impedance of a transmission line probe at <100MHz. The probes are useful in applications that produce fast rising, narrow pulses with amplitudes which exceed the dynamic range of active probes. They also tend to have less parasitic effects on frequency response, so they are ideal for measuring impedance. By providing a simple yet elegant solution to probing high-frequency signals, Picotest's one and two-port transmission line probes preserve signal fidelity and allow high-bandwidth test equipment to properly measure circuit characteristics.
Impedance Demands New Probe Capabilities
High-speed applications put pressure on the measurement of power supply power rails to unprecedented levels. As an example, the measurement of PDN impedance for FPGAs, ASICs, and high-speed digital devices generally requires the measurement of impedance levels in the milliohm range. Measuring the high-speed step load response in power systems using two ports is difficult because of the need to connect two 50 ohm transmission lines to the output capacitor. To further compound this difficult task, these measurements often need to be made on very small circuits such as cell phones, solid state disk drives, and computer tablets, to name a few examples.
This revolutionary probe alleviates many of these challenges while maintaining the precision 50 ohm characteristics required for these types of measurements.
Picotest P2102A 2-Port 50 ohm Transmission Line PDN Probe
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