Tektronix TDS3LIM User manual

User Manual
TDS3LIM
Limit Test
Application Module
071-0934-00
*P071093400*
071093400

Copyright ©Tektronix, Inc. All rights reserved.
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issued and pending. Information in this publication supercedes
that in all previously published material. Specifications and
price change privileges reserved.
Tektronix, Inc., P.O. Box 500, Beaverton, OR 97077
TEKTRONIX, TEK, TEKPROBE, and Tek Secure are
registered trademarks of Tektronix, Inc.
DPX, WaveAlert, and e*Scope are trademarks of
Tektronix, Inc.
WARRANTY SUMMARY
Tektronix warrants that the products that it manufactures and
sells will be free from defects in materials and workmanship
for a period of one (1) year from the date of shipment from an
authorized Tektronix distributor. If a product proves defective
within the respective period, Tektronix will provide repair or
replacement as described in the complete warranty statement.
To arrange for service or obtain a copy of the complete
warranty statement, please contact your nearest Tektronix sales
and service office.
EXCEPT AS PROVIDED IN THIS SUMMARY OR THE
APPLICABLE WARRANTY STATEMENT, TEKTRONIX
MAKES NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION THE
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND
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SHALL TEKTRONIX BE LIABLE FOR INDIRECT,
SPECIAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES.

1
Contents
Safety Summary 2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Installing the Application Module 5. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Limit Testing Concepts 5. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
TDS3LIM Overview 8. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Accessing Limit Test Menus 9. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Creating a Limit Test Template 11. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Selecting a Limit Test Input 14. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Selecting Limit Test Responses 15. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Starting Limit Testing 16. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
TDS3LIM Conventions 17. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Menus 19. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Contacting Tektronix
Phone [phone]*
Address Tektronix, Inc.
Department or name (if known)
14200 SW Karl Braun Drive
P.O. Box 500 Beaverton, OR 97077 USA
Web site www.tektronix.com
Salessupport 1-800-833-9200,selectoption1*
Servicesupport 1-800-833-9200,selectoption2*
Technical
support Email:[email protected]
1-800-833-9200,selectoption3*
1-503-627-2400
6:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Pacific time
*This phone number is toll free in North America. After
office hours, please leave a voice mail message.
Outside North America, contact a Tektronix sales office
or distributor; see the Tektronix web site for a list of
offices.

2
Safety Summary
To avoid potential hazards, use this product only as
specified. While using this product, you may need to
access other parts of the system. Read the General Safety
Summary in other system manuals for warnings and
cautions related to operating the system.
Preventing Electrostatic Damage
CAUTION. Electrostatic discharge (ESD) can
damage components in the oscilloscope and its
accessories. To prevent ESD, observe these
precautions when directed to do so.
UseaGroundStrap. Wear a grounded antistatic wrist strap
to discharge the static voltage from your body while
installing or removing sensitive components.
Use a Safe Work Area. Do not use any devices capable of
generating or holding a static charge in the work area
where you install or remove sensitive components.
Avoid handling sensitive components in areas that have a
floor or benchtop surface capable of generating a static
charge.
3
Handle Components Carefully. Do not slide sensitive
components over any surface. Do not touch exposed
connector pins. Handle sensitive components as little as
possible.
Transport andStoreCarefully. Transport and store sensitive
components in a static-protected bag or container.
Manual Storage
The oscilloscope front cover has a convenient place to
store this manual.

5
Installing the Application Module
Please refer to the TDS3000 & TDS3000B Series
Application Module Installation Manual for information
on installing the application module.
Limit Testing Concepts
Limit testing is the ability to compare an active signal
with a template waveform. The following figure shows
an active waveform (dark sine wave) being compared to
a template waveform (shaded area).
4

6
Any part of the active waveform that exceeds the tem-
plate waveform’s envelope is a limit test waveform
violation, which the oscilloscope highlights. You can set
the oscilloscope to respond to a limit test violation by
stopping limit testing, emitting a beep, and so on. The
following figure shows the highlighted (black) part of
the active waveform that exceeds the limit test envelope.
A template is an envelope waveform that consists of
minimum/maximum (min/max) pairs of sample points.
Template envelope waveforms created from 500 point
source waveforms contain 250 min/max pairs; Template
envelope waveforms created from10K point waveforms
contain 5000 min/max pairs.
7
The following figure represents how the oscilloscope
creates the template waveform limit test envelope from
user-entered vertical and horizontal division units.
Division units are referenced to graticule divisions,
where 1 major division contains 1000 millidivisions, or
mdivs. The minimum mdiv unit is 20, which equals one
screen pixel.
Vertical
limits Horizontal limits Resulting template
+=
+=
When a source waveform is compared with an envelope
waveform, each source waveform sample point value is
compared to the vertical and horizontal min/max values
of the corresponding envelope waveform sample point.
Any source waveform data point that is not equal to or
within the corresponding template envelope min/max
values is a violation.

9
Accessing Limit Test Menus
You access the TDS3LIM limit test controls from either
the limit test QuickMenu or from the Applications menu.
The QuickMenu displays a single bottom and side menu
that provides quick access to all limit test functions.
To display the limit test QuickMenu, do the following
steps:
1Push the QUICKMENU panel button.
2Push the Menu bottom button to select Limit Test.
The oscilloscope displays the limit test bottom and
side menu items.
8
TDS3LIM Overview
This section provides an overview of the TDS3LIM
Limit Test application module features, and describes
how to access the limit test functions.
You can do the following limit test tasks with the
TDS3LIM application module:
HCreate and save up to four template waveforms in
reference memory. You can create a template
waveform from either an active input signal or from a
saved reference waveform.
HSelect the channel to compare to the template. You
can compare multiple channels to a single template
waveform, compare each channel to a single template
waveform, or any combination of the above.
HSet the oscilloscope to respond to waveforms that
exceed the template limits. You can set the
oscilloscope to stop acquiring waveforms, save the
failed waveform data to a file, emit a beep, save the
screen image to the hard copy device, or any
combination of the above.

10
The Applications menus provide multiple bottom and
side menu items that contain all limit test controls and
settings. The menu items contain text or graphics that
more fully describe the function of each menu item.
To display the limit test menu items in the Applications
menu, do the following steps:
1Push the UTILITY panel button.
2Push the System bottom button to select Apps.
3Push the Module button to select Limit Test. The
bottom and side menus change to show the limit test
functions.
11
Creating a Limit Test Template
You must create a limit test waveform template before
you can do limit testing. The TDS3LIM lets you easily
create a template by using a known good waveform
(active or reference), using the vertical and horizontal
division units to graphically define the template wave-
form envelope, and saving the template to reference
waveform memory (Ref1 - Ref4).
To use an active waveform to create a limit test template,
do the following steps:
1Connect a known good waveform to any one of the
oscilloscope inputs.
2Set the oscilloscope horizontal and vertical controls to
optimize the waveform size and position on the
screen.
NOTE. Use the Average acquisition mode to
create a smoother, cleaner template waveform.
You can also save the oscilloscope settings from
step 2 into setup memory so that later on you
can quickly reload the oscilloscope settings to
correctly display the incoming waveform for
limit testing.
NOTE. Use Envelope acquisition mode in order
to create template waveforms that include
occasional overshoots.

13
8Push the ±H Limit side button to select the horizontal
limits field. Use the general purpose knob to set the
template waveform envelope horizontal limits. Refer
to page 6 for an explanation of the limit units.
9Push the Store Template bottom button to create the
limit test waveform and save it to the specified
reference memory location. If the template reference
waveform is currently displayed, the oscilloscope
redraws the reference waveform using the newly
stored values.
10 If the template reference waveform is not currently
displayed, push the CONTROL bottom button to
select On. The oscilloscope displays the reference
waveform.
11 If the template reference waveform does not meet
your requirements, repeat steps 7 through 9 to change
the template waveform envelope.
12
3Push the QUICKMENU panel button.
4Push the Menu bottom button to select Limit Test.
The oscilloscope displays the limit test bottom and
side menu items.
5Push the Template Source/Destination side button to
select the Source field; use the general purpose knob
to select the channel to which the known good signal
is connected (Ch1 - Ch4).
You can also create a limit test waveform template
from a reference waveform by using the general
purpose knob to select a reference waveform
(Ref1-Ref4).
6Push the Source/Destination side button to select the
Destination field; use the general purpose knob to
select the reference memory location where you want
to store the template waveform (Ref1 - Ref4).
7Push the ±V Limit side button to select the template
vertical limits field. Use the general purpose knob to
set the template waveform envelope vertical limits.
Refer to page 6 for an explanation of the limit units.

14
Selecting a Limit Test Input
To select the channel source for comparing with a
template, do the following steps (the Limit Test Quick-
Menu must still be displayed):
1Connect the test waveform to any one of the
oscilloscope inputs.
2Set the source waveform horizontal and vertical
settings to the same values that were used to create the
template.
3Push the Waveform Comparisons bottom button for
the test waveform channel to select the limit test
template (Ref1 - Ref4).
15
Selecting Limit Test Responses
When the active waveform exceeds the template wave-
form’s envelope, the oscilloscope can do one or more of
the following actions:
HSend a hard copy of the screen to a printer or file
HSave the failing test waveform to a file on the floppy
disk
HEmit a beep each time the test waveform fails
HStop waveform acquisition and display the failing
waveform(s)
In the QuickMenu, the On Violation side menu uses two
buttons, as shown in the following figure.
Select a response
Enable/disablea response
Use the upper menu button to select a response, and then
use the lower menu button to enable or disable the
selected response. You can select and enable any com-
bination of responses.