Hi! It is always exciting when Keysight release a brand new oscilloscope, because it doesnt happen that often, especially in the lower end market. In Fact,, the last time it happened it was just over 6 YEARS ago, way back when I was working in the garage and I did a review in the garage of the original ... Keysight 1, 2000X and 3000X osilloscopes and they made a huge impression on the market. You could say almost practically game changeing with their built in function-gen and high speed Mega Zoom 4 ASIC and everything else.

It was absolutely fantastic! But Six years later, they released the brand spanking new 1000X series which uses the exact same Mega-zoom 4 chip that we saw 6 years ago. so they still try to eke out the return on investment on that Mega-zoom 4 ASIC that they had to design and ... wow ... No doubt, it probably cost some cheap ass chips now.

but now its amazeing that we can now get that Mega Zoom 4 ASIC technology in a 450 USD scope and that's what this one starts at. This is top on the line unit, the 11O2G with the built in function-gen and I will do a separete review video on this, so I won't go into it. Anyway, 2 gig-samples/sec and 100 MHz only two channels, but it"s got the built in fuction gen.. And it's got the demo stuff, same as the 2000 and 3000X series.

And For those who you wanna see the size difference, it's pretty substancial 🙂 And it gets the industry benchmark in low end scopes Rigol DS1054Z, they are practically identical in size Now, As far as the look and feel of it goes,, it's exactly the same as the 2000 and 3000X series. The knobs are identical, the indents,, everything else. the indented feel of them is absolutely indentical And As is common practically every low end scope on the market, they ?mitt? the automatic 10X probe and the probe power interface, but ... you know, you expect that and it's got quality tilting feet like that, with the rubber at the back, it ain't goin' anywhere, it feels REALLY nice and solid Well built.

Even kind a like the new sort of style in look on the thing, ... Anyway,, this ain't a review On The back you got power and you got USB, thats it, no. LAN. Thank you very much.

And Yes, it is made in China not made in Keysight's Malaysian facilities. So I'm not sure if it's a Keysight facility in China or whatever, but it is not a rebadged scope. Wanna Make that clear, it is not a rigol, not anything else,. its a 100% designed and manufactured by Keysight.

But who actually manufactures the thing, on what line, I dont know... somewhere in China. So Now, what we say on the EEVblog: Dont Turn it on, TAKE IT APART Just Like other similar scopes,, two screws here, two under there, and this hole panel will lift off, but expect to see a lot of shielding, because this thing aint light. So They promote this and have a slogan: scrap the toys, get a real oscilloscope.

So We expect to see real oscilloscope quality in here. Any Rust on the chassis? Nope! Now, you can"t hear it on here, but the fan is kind of annoyingly just on the loud side. Like Its not ?Hell-in? but it is noticable in a quiet lab. IIeee...

I Dont like it. I Think its a bit of a fail And We got a real clunking mains power switch not this soft power rubbish, and yes,, confirmed it does actually draw zero power. And The folded metal work looks typicall for a scope like this. And Yes, we got our proper RF fingers here, no worries! There Physically nothing on the board down in there for the Ethernet interface, so dont get excited there and external BNC is just not there, but hey, they put them in the metalwork.

So Who knows? Alright, lets get straight into it. Quite A few screws around the side here, and lets pop it open. Tada! We Are in like Flynn! HAHAA, look at that, 2 board construction Look at this. I havent seen this in a keysight scope before, but we've seen it in other low cost ones, notably in the Instek I think it was Am ...

a ... sparate board for the Mega-zoom 4 ASIC and the ADC and the main ST ARM processor and another Xilinx FPGA So all the logic. So This is interestic, why they have done this? Is it for an upgradeability thing? I dont think so. but possibly they splitted out maybe to 2 design groups perhabs, and then, you know, they tought, we can tweek the processor and everything later keep the design decisions.

You know, further down the develop... your final decision on what you gonnal include what you not gonna include further down the process ?rotten? have to respin the top motherboard. But of course its gonna cost you more to put it on the separate board like that with the connectors in theory, anyway. Its gonna cost you more, but hey, that would be nice and easy just to test your processor.

and FPGA and ADC board on its own like that you just plug it straight in to a test jig, and bobs your uncle. So, ye I like that, we got metal shielded can down here. Looks like we got a screw on the top, so looks like we can take that off, hopefully it doesnt... Ahh maybe soldered down.

Anyway it is, woo... rip it off! No doubt! Power all around here. We got external trigger over here. And this would be the function gen and your waveform and that extra waveform output They Got there battery backup of course and...

not much doin... at all. As You'd expect in a 450 buck scope. you expect cheapest chips frontend, 100 MHz bandwith Yes even the 50 MHz model is gonna have the full 100 MHz bandwith, they just software limiting that and of corse the Mga Zoom 4 ASIC which would be this puppy here.

I Belive. Because this one is gonna be the ADC. And yes, one ADC is handeling two channels Wait a minute! I Can see some Siglent stype rust HA-HA-HA ha ha - ha - ha Yea, wasn't there at first glance, but yep. Bonus rust with every low end oscilloscope Nothing Particularly novel on the thermal airflow point of view.

There is our fan down in there. Its Blowing into this. So its sucking air into the unit, practically directly over the processor here and that will just go disperse out, go over the heatsink pins here, and go out the back ...holes here... vent holes here.

So Nothing special. There is no vent holes on the side. So it is pretty much gonna come down and go "voooppp" and out. Meh, whatever...

it will get the job done. But I'm certainly not fan of tha fan-s. Zhen-Senn-genng..... Electronics CO limited....

OK.... under right is listed. Anyway, there is no compliant mount on that, so rigidly coupled down to the chassis so the viberation is gonna possibly be amplified by a little bit by the chassis, thats not helping. You Probably dont expect that in a 450 $ bottom of the range scope tho..

Thats For the mains wiring, no worries,, it's all heat-shrunked, of course. The Nice touch, the put the rubber grommet around there so it cant cut thru the wires accidentally. Nice Earth Point Everything doing right. No Worries! And WOW Check out the power supply! That is one of the neatest power supply I've seen a long time,.

LOOK! And Someone gone in town with the silastic gun. Look at this! He Silastic Absolutely everything! Nice Touch, they've got lock tight on the screws there. Beautiful! No Worries, whats so ever!? Obviously all of the active circuitry is gonna be surface mount on the back. But the input is fused, no worries.

Its got a common-mode choke. It looks like it's got Mov-protection on the input. And It's just a beautiful layout. Look at it! Everything is nicely spaced and separated.

Big thumbs up for that! Annnd There is the model number for those who are playing along at home. I Guess you can say that they skimped a little bit with the direct wireing straight to the PCB on the output there. Didn't bother with the connector. Saved a copule cents.

But Who the hell is "asia-x"? Wha.? Asia-x caps... 105 C rated, a little bit close to the heat sink there, but neee. And the others are "OKCAP" ...please. This is not installing confidence in me.

I mean, you now, they cant even keep the same manufacturer. pfff. Give me a break! And On the blue output caps there are "aishi" brand, or however you pronounce it. Jea, they are on of the biggest manufacturers in China.

but, not exactly what you highly rate. And The other green ones there "xunda" ohoooo my. Mix and match, what did they get at the Shenzen market this week. And This is the bottom side for those who are playing along at home.

That Looks neat and tidy. Once Again,, I Like the design and layout of this thing is just let down by some cheap-ass caps perhabs. But Anyway,, here we got a spark gaps down there. You know? it's all you doin,' in fact.

That seems to have a conformal coating on the bottom of it. Interesting. And If you lift off the processor board here, you can see, that is bugger all. Underneath We got four high speed board to board interconnects there, part for the course of.

Anyway, they could have put all this logic on one board and pontencially save themselves a little bit of cost here. But No, they gone for that secound board. so there is obviously some sort of strategyc design decicion to put that on the secound board. I'd Love to hear the design team's reason for that, if they watching.

Bring Comment down below. One of the things people will want to check on is what is the clock like. What is the PLL like all that sort of stuff. Because that determines your time base, accouracy, and jitter, and all that sort of jazz.

You Know,, no one should be that concerned about it in a low end scope. But We have seen Rigol goofed that up before in their 2000 series, for example. Well Unfortunately, you wont find that on here. Here is the main oscillator, I might get the macro lens, and have a look at that.

But There basically is no PLL inside this thing. Its Not this puppy here, if you wondering. It's a TPS 6150 or something, thats the LCD bias circuitry. So There is no PLL on here, its basically built in to the Mega-zoom 4 ASIC there.

So All the magic is done inside there, so you wont find your tradicional PLL on here to get your high clock rate. And We got ourselves a 4 Mbit fash memory there, so that must be for the Spartan FPGA, are we assumeing. Speakin A witch, it's the XC3S500E FTG256DGQ1629 for those who are playing along at home. An The processor is the same Spear600 ARM processor we have seen in the previous versions.

Of course it would be. Its gonna be running the same OS and software and everything else. Of course they gonna leverage that, they not gonna respin that, thay aint stupid. And There - thank you very much for provideing that keysight - is the J-tag bus.

So... those who wanna hack away, go for it.. And There is the other JTAG as well. Thank you very much! "DB" that would be debug, so that looks like its tied into the Mega-zoom 4 ASICs So I'm not sure whats going on this, I think some people have reverse engineered it or have hacked around on the 2000-3000X series, but I havent been following that, sorry.

Interestingly There is TEMP and TEMPB here, so they be monitoring the dye temperature I would be presumeing. So The scope should know its getting too hot under the collar and probably pop up with a warning and shut down. Is Nothing else exciting on the back, theres a TLO74 up there. And This massive bypass happening underneath the ADC I belive in there.

I would be guessing that one there is your ADC and that ones the Mega-zoom 4 ASIC. I Wont bother. try to heat these things up and get the heatsins off. These are custom keysight part.

So You know, its not gonna tell us anything. But except that its a mega Zoom 4 ASIC Exactly the same whats in the 2000 and 3000X series from 6 years ago. The ADC could have changed. could have been a lower spec part or whatever, but we are not gonna know the details.

Thats Gonna be a keysight custom part, but the Mega Zoom 4 ASIC is exactly the same, they leverageing that because they spawn that once spent the millions of dollars to developing that and the emetizing the cost for like 6 years now, so thats probably cheap-ass chips for them on some old silicone process. So Yea,, it has the full capability in there. Its got the one million waveforms updates per secound. Its got the 4 Meg of sample memory.

They can easily enable the stuff. Its got the hardware decoding, real 64k pont FFT all real timing hardware. Protocol decoded all in hardware... everithing else.

But They choose not to enable it, because that would be into their 2000 and 3000 series sales. And Also, you can tell that one is the ADC, because when you layin out a system like this, it gonna be the closest to the frontend.. The signals are gonna comming out here, they gonna be differential pairs of course.... comming out, its gonna be a differencial analog signal, its gonna go straight int this connector here, which pops up on the bottom there, and then it goes - I think they might even be some termination down there - goes straight into the ADC here.

And Of course your Mega Zoom 4 ASIC is gonna be coupled into your processor over here, so you almost bet your life that this is the Mega Zoom 4 and the ADC, just by the system arrangement there.. And For those wondering if they gonna release a mixed signal version, well, I havent heard anything, and I woludn't expect them to. They Have working on this for years. If They would have that option, you would have like seen cutouts in the front or things spaced to put that in there, but we dont have any of that.

They Deliberately spaced these thing out, there is really maybe tackt away in there Perhabs you can have like 8 channel jobby, or something, but then the probes woludnt be compatible.... I dont thin, its gonna happen. Dont Hold your breath. And Not really worth spending much time on the Arb-sig-gen, these stuff are just amp's and things like that..

To do offset and outout buffeing stuff like that, and the demo signal generator down here. Now This is the BNC, they sell these as a non generator model. I Dont actually have non-G version. The base price unit does not have the signal generator.

Let to belive that is phisically does not have it populated. I Assume maybe it doesnt have the rest of the suff up populated either, I'm not entirely sure, but have to wait until somebody does a teardown of a non-G version. I Can almost garantee that the non-g version be exact same layout, so in theory these are all off the shelf part, so you could potentially if you are really-really keen... potentiall get the non-g version without the parts fitted, and fit them yourself.

and the BNC I Belive the front panel doesnt have the cotout for it tho, doesnt phisically have the cotout, but the layout would be there. Thats What I belive, anyway. But Dont quote me on that. If This thing is gonna get hacked, and people are want to get a real feature rich, the top end model for the low end price.

They gonna be buying the function generator version with everything installed. Other way its just too much hassle. Even if you could do it. Poor Puppy is unpopulated.

Whats going on there? There is all that LCD bias driver stuff, I was telling you about, nyeee. Power supply, nothing to write home about, these are wet electrolyte ones. You can tell because its got the vent in the top, they are not the solid SMD caps, so you know, they are fine of course. You got all LDO-s, this thing has no shortage a power rails.

1.8 V, 3.3, 1.2, 1 V of course they ar all for the FPGA, and other, digital course and things like that What else we got here, like 2 V over here I saw somwhere. I dont know, a whole bunch of stuff. The trigger circuit is like... meh.

Always Nice to see an NEC relay. There is one thing I dont see on here, and this is an LCD cable. This one over here, this tiny one thats the keyboard cable. So its going off to the front panel, so this must be a PCB mount, or the cable is on the bottom, and it connects anyway.

I'm gonna whip this board off. I Gonna do the cans last. Lets Get this off and see whats behind. A Bunch of self tappers in there and bingo, we are out.

And there is out LCD, we can see that that actually connect down to the bottom of the board down there. So Thats always a bit of a pain in the butt. I Wont bother showing the keyboard front panel. thats like meh....

whatever. And Of course they are taking RF seriously,. we got our metal fingers there, and there are going down to the pads there and there. Nice! Low inductance for the win.

Pretty Darn proud are they made in China. Well Now this is interesting, look at this unused BNC cutout here: Were they thingink of four channel version maybe?? And Bingo There also got at up here in the chassis. So they hedgeing their beds down the road... with the chassis at least, that they could do a four channel version.

Because This is one of the key things that does not make it cometitive with the Rigol 1000Z series and why its so popular because its a four channel scope. But They have done that for a reason. So and of course you dont have the external trigger, when you have the 4 channel. So, you know there is no reason why they couldnt respin that board and have 4 channels in there.

No external triggel. Hmm... maybe. Also,, thats why they done the processor board, so they can whack another ADC on there.

Perhabs or change that or multiplex it or do or whatever they need to do to get four channels. But Do not get excited And Do Not hold your breath and hold out for a four channel version of this scope. Because I dont think you will see one any time soon, if at all.. They Just hedgeing their beds early on in the design process and probably just woud "neeee, I'll stick with 2 channels".

Because Thats all. ?take of got? And Here is the LCD which is manufactured by one hang low, anonymous. And The intresting thing about this is if you read the datasheet for this thing, it tells you that there is a little asterisk and you read the fine print down below. It says that this display can have up to 5 dead or stuck pixeles and not be deemed a failure.

You Kidding me? What Is this? The Bloody 90's? Ridicuolus! So They have obviously used some cheap ass... you know... bottom of the range consumer grade display in this. As Far as I am aware, dont have that same clause in the 2000 and 3000X series.

Noone tolerate dead freakin' pixels. But Apparently they are all just: "read the fineprint, we are not gonna give you money back". One of the BNC front panel nuts have two washers, someone was feeling extra generous that thay on the production line. Good on you.

That was a waste of it. Wah? Nothing on the bottom. Couple of Cristal 25 and 30 M there. And Why they didnt put those on the top...

Pfff, dont know. Anyway, couple of "74HC", couple of standard "78L05" regulators, and thats about all she wrote. Little bit more on the analog frontend On the bottom here. Looks like we got like some sort of differential filtering thing or something like that, hap..

And the 125 MHz Cristal on the top side of the board, I cant find any info on that. So if anyone has any clue, let us know it.. HEYYIII . 25 Meg and 30 Meg, that beats the processor and the FPGA probably.

Those parts on the bottom of the analog section there. I tought some sort of differencial pair thing and looks like just some sort of a star ground with decoupling or something going back to it. And the analog frontend shields just come off with a screw. AAAaaa, beautiful.

Thank you very much. Its even labeled "NUT". Beautiful, they didnt solder them in. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Gotta Be hacked now.

First cab of the rank here "LMH6574" and this is actually a video multiplexer. So There you go. Couple of trannys down there, are they. Analog devices part, havent got the part number for that.

Got ourselves a trimmer cap, there is only one trimmer cap on this thing, which has a hole in the can to adjust. What else? Got a relay. Thats a photo MOS relay down there, is it. Looks Pretty standard for a 100 MHz frontend.

74HTC595 the digital expanding Choice of champions. And I Belive that is a ?"hiteye"? "HMC626" there. So its a one Gig badwidth with a variable gain in. Exactly What you need.

You dont need 1 gig, but you need a variable gain amp in there. So This one actually doesnt have a bandwith limiter. Into the software bandwith limiter, so they must be limiting that, somewhere else. Curiously, is an unpopulated footprint there.

So Im not sure whats going on there. And they got that jumper linked, zero ohm jumper link. Bypassing that, so thats interesting. Once Again,, I dont have the 50 MHz educational model to compare it to.

But I Sould be surprised if they are not identical. So The output of the variable gain amp then goes up to here and this is an "LMC6552" I Belive it is. Once Again,, this is a one gig bandwith amp, differencial driver which is, of course, exactly what you see, sort of the differencial type layout there. And Than the differential pair buggering off.

Even Got a nice handy little testpoint there. So They can characterize that at the production stage. But Once again,, that does not have any attenuation built in. Like digital attenuation or anything like that.

I Pretty much know for a fact. I think they are software limiting this, because you can actually buy a software upgrade option from 70 MHz to a 100 MHz, So obviously they gotta be able to at least swich those two in software. They Gotta be swiching in something in there. Wheter or not its a varicap or whether or not its LC-RC filter or something like that.

...crude filter beeing switched in. Not Entirely sure in that, have to reverse engineer this to really see. So There you have it, thats inside the new keysight. 1000X Series oscilloscope.

And Its very well designed and manufactured, as you would expect. Little Bit of a let down with the quality of the caps in the power supply, but neeee... its part of the course these days. The fan is a little bit loud, I dont like that.

But Apart from that, they have actually engeneerd the board really well. And Having that processor board on there is a really interesting design decision. And As I said, they probably tought about with the front panel holes and everything, probably tought about a 4 channel version, early on in the design process and than maybe changed their mind further down the track cause thats one of the key limitations of this thing that is only a 2 channel model. They Dont have a 4 channel option, so dont hold your breath for a four channel version and dont hold yout breath for a mixed signal logic analyzer addon..

I Wouldnt expect that. Its Designed that clearly targeted this copete directly against the tek-TBS1000 series in the educational market. Its Not really designed for the hobbyist. If it was.

I'll talk about priceing in the review and stuff like that which I havent shot yet. Sorry I goofed up, and didnt realised that 28 days in February. Doh! ... Anyway...

This is released today, Its a 450 bucks for the base model one without the function generator goes up to 700 or 800 dollars or something. For The full Bells and Whistles 100 MHz version with Function Gen that we got here. But Hey! Its As you'd expect,, its a very nicely designed ?ampritue? scope And It does work exactly like a 2000 and 3000X scopes as we have seen in the review. So It is really a high quality scope at low end price .

Pretty Much exactly as they advertised. So Im reasonably impressed with this. I Have to do a reverse engineering of the analog fontend of course. and always with these tardowns, I will take some high-res photos.

I'll put them over Eevblog.com so for those who want to do some reverse engineering or hacking on this thing than go if you like.. Anyway The ultimate test, wether or not, is this going to be succesful in the market? Is wether or not, it can be hacked. I think like in the market that, you know, like the hacker hobbyist maker kind of market to compete against the 1054Z which is hackable, and other scopes which are hackable, this one has to be hackable. and if you can get the Function Gen version for that than its gonna be a absolute bargain.

It Yould be a killer scope. And Of course as time goes on, they can release extra functionality in this, because it got the Mega Zoom 4 ASIC in there. they can increase the smaple rate up to 4 gig if they wanted to. They can increase the sample memory up to 4 meg if they wanted to.

They could implement the million waveforms/sec if they want to All That functionality is already built into this scope. And Of course the serial decodeing is an optional extra. They can include that for free. So They have a lot of scope to move on the priceing.

But Clearly in this stage, they targeting the Tek-tds1000 series. Hope You find that teardown interesting. And If you did, please give it a big thumbs up! And As always, Eevblog Forum is the place to discuss hacks and all sorts of test equipment reviews, and teardowns and stuff like that: Always Linked in down below. Catch you next time!.