Global oscilloscope market steadily increasing competition
Oscilloscope market grows steadily
As one of the most commonly used general-purpose devices in the electronics industry, the oscilloscope market has been steadily increasing for decades, with annual sales of more than US$1 billion. Research data shows that currently oscilloscopes account for about one-third of the market in China's general test market. Compared to the previous years, the market share of oscilloscopes has increased. This further shows that the oscilloscope's market position in the overall test and measurement instrument products has gradually increased.
With the continuous improvement of user requirements and continuous improvement of corresponding performance of oscilloscopes in various industries, the important role of oscilloscopes in the entire test and measurement industry will become increasingly prominent.
Du Jiwei, manager of Agilent’s Digital Test Division’s Asia Pacific market, said that most people think that the advent of the digital age will drive the market for logic analyzers, but in fact it will drive the popularity of oscilloscopes, which is embodied in the following aspects:
First, the widespread use of FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays), even if the design of a dedicated chip, is often prototyped using an FPGA. Complex FPGA verification requires a logic analyzer, but many applications can use a mixed-signal oscilloscope. .
Second, the popularity of serial buses (single-chip microcomputers and programmable devices), in order to reduce the size of electronic products, engineers tend to convert the data originally on the parallel bus into a serial format with one or two signal lines. To pass through, physical layer testing of all buses requires the use of an oscilloscope.
Third, many of the original parts that were implemented using analog circuits were implemented in digital circuits. The original part that was tested with a spectrum analyzer was now tested with an oscilloscope or a logic analyzer.
Fourth, digital video has evolved from DVI (digital video interface) to HDMI (high-definition multimedia interface) and DisplayPort, and mobile video technology has MIPI (mobile industrial processor interface). These all require oscilloscopes to complete conformance testing; for example, MIPI has just been adopted by some companies and the test plan has been launched. "So, in the digital age, oscilloscopes not only play a role, but also play a more role, in some ways even beyond the role of the traditional oscilloscope." Du Jiwei said.
Perhaps it is because of the important role of the oscilloscope that makes R & S determined to share a share in this field. Wu Ke, chief representative and general manager of R&S China, said: “The introduction of oscilloscope products is a milestone for R&S. R&S in the oscilloscope field will strive for the top three positions in the world even if it takes 10 years or 15 years.â€
Technology to multiple trends
The development of oscilloscope technology to this day is basically American companies that dominate the world. The $1 billion oscilloscope market includes a variety of applications, so manufacturers have introduced different oscilloscopes to meet the needs of different occasions. And several major companies that lead the protagonist lead the continuous development of oscilloscope technology.
Du Jiwei told reporters that the future of oscilloscope technology is often determined by several factors, including time to market pressure, technology maturity, industry demand, peer competition and interaction. He believes that low-end oscilloscopes focus on price, high-end oscilloscopes focus on performance, so the trend of technology development is not in a single direction, but to several or more directions.
Dr. Ma Zhigang of Rohde & Schwarz (R&S) China Ltd. summarized the demand for oscilloscopes: High-performance RF front-end, high-precision digital sampling system, high waveform capture rate, multiple stable trigger systems, and larger storage Depth, more application options and easier to use.
Bandwidth is very important for the oscilloscope. Du Jiwei said that taking the high-end real-time oscilloscope as an example, the highest bandwidth is Agilent's 32 GHz bandwidth 90000X series oscilloscope. The core technology is the preamplifier bandwidth directly to 32 GHz analog bandwidth. This is because Agilent has matured indium phosphide semiconductor process technology, as well as RF microwave 3D packaging technology, and solved the technical difficulties of aluminum nitride scattering materials used in chip set packaging, and companies that have not mastered this high-end technology must Think of other ways to increase oscilloscope bandwidth.
When interviewed by a reporter from China Electronics News, Teng Jinhui, technical marketing manager of Tektronix's distribution business in Greater China, said that increasing the number of channels should also be a trend for oscilloscopes to meet the needs of embedded design engineers, and hybrid oscilloscopes are the ideal solution. "In October last year, Tektronix introduced the industry's first high-performance mixed-signal oscilloscope, the MSO70000, with a bandwidth of up to 20 GHz. It is also the world's fastest mixed-signal oscilloscope," said Deng Jinhui.
Increasing competition
It can be seen that the entire oscilloscope market is subdivided according to bandwidth (application) and can be divided into high-end market (above 4 GHz), mid-market (350 MHz to 1 GHz), low-end market (below 500 MHz), definition and division of each company. Slightly different. At present, major foreign manufacturers in this field include Tektronix, Agilent, and LeCroy, together with the newly entered R&S. Of course, there are many local manufacturers, which currently have the highest bandwidth 1GHz oscilloscope.
Deng Jinhui said that Tektronix currently offers a series of perfect oscilloscopes ranging from 40MHz to 20GHz to meet the most extensive application requirements in the market. “You can see that the mid-range and low-end markets are getting more and more attention from manufacturers. Because this market has a huge user base, from research and development, production to basic education, there is great potential for development. Everyone is Having picked up this piece of cake, of course, has also attracted some new manufacturers to join." Deng Jinhui concluded.
“At the high end, Agilent gradually expands its market share with its absolute advantage in signal integrity, and has an overwhelmingly dominant advantage in HDMI,†Du Weiwei told reporters. From an application point of view, Agilent emphasizes and expands its hardware rapid response capabilities, as well as its advantages in circuit development and debugging, and in the search for incidental faults. On its non-Windows platform (InfiniiVision Series) oscilloscopes, the unique technology enables waveform acquisition rates. Under deep storage conditions, up to 100,000 waveforms per second can still be achieved. In future new products, Agilent will further use this core technology, extend more additional features, and increase the attractiveness of R&D customers. In the production customer group, it is divided into a slice of its own LXI small size, no panel oscilloscope, the bandwidth of the current modular oscilloscope has been covered to 13GHz.
For the new R&S company entering the oscilloscope field, it also occupies part of the market with two series of products. Its RTO product series, bandwidth 1GHz and 2GHz, is positioned in the field of high-performance requirements; RTM product series, with a bandwidth of 500MHz, is mainly used in communication electronic signal measurement. Fields to meet research, school, production, maintenance and other needs.