This article explains the expected behavior of on-die power rails during CMOS switching events, including PDN current flow, clock-edge noise, and asymmetric current draw between switching and latching operations.
Learn how oscilloscope histograms help characterize component specifications by comparing propagation delay, mean, standard deviation, and measurement spread under different conditions.
Eric is a professor in the EE department at Colorado University, Boulder and a Fellow at Teledyne LeCroy. He has a BS in Physics from MIT and a PhD in Physics from the University of Arizona, Tucson. He enjoys DesignCon and writing for SI Journal.
A simple 50-ohm source series termination enables accurate, low-cost power rail measurements without the reflections caused by direct coax connections.
A real-time oscilloscope can help engineers identify EMI sources and reduce radiated emissions before submitting products for costly FCC compliance testing.
Understanding Thevenin source impedance and oscilloscope termination reveals why reflections distort rise time measurements in unmatched transmission line setups.
A simple rise-time experiment reveals why every oscilloscope user must understand transmission line behavior when measuring signals with sub-10 ns edges.
Understanding when to use a TDR, WavePulser 40iX, or VNA depends on bandwidth, rise time, port count, and whether you need time-domain impedance or frequency-domain S-parameters.
Understanding how return currents flow—and why they follow the path of lowest loop impedance—is essential to controlling reflections, crosstalk, and EMI in high-speed designs.
Fast-rising signals can introduce transmission line reflections that appear as ringing on an oscilloscope, but proper 50-ohm termination can eliminate these artifacts.
What if we remove the probes from the equation by connecting our DUT's output directly to the oscilloscope's analog input using a 3-ft. 50-Ω coaxial cable?
