Option MTH, MTM - Mask Test Application Software

When it is necessary to measure the performance of your signals against telecommunications or computer standards to verify compliance and interoperability, the Mask Test Application Software, with more than 100 standard masks, makes it easy. Each standard mask is easily loaded from the oscilloscope internal memory and can be immediately used to conduct Pass/Fail testing. Adherence to a standard mask is determined pixel-by-pixel throughout the display.

When a standard mask is loaded, the oscilloscope makes use of the integrated Communication Trigger. Each standard mask is associated with a communication standard and the mask you select automatically determines which communication trigger is used. Some models include integrated clock recovery circuitry up to 6 Gb/s for NRZ eye patterns. Clock recovery allows you to perform more reliable and accurate mask testing.

The oscilloscope can reduce setup time for making a mask test measurement by performing an Autoset for vertical, horizontal, and trigger parameters on the source signal. Additionally, to reduce the chance of failures, the oscilloscope can Autofit the waveform to the mask to minimize hits within the mask. It can do this a single time following an Autoset or it can perform an Autofit after every triggered acquisition.

The Mask Test Application Software provides flexible test definitions enabling you to tailor the test to your needs. You can run a test for a user-defined number of waveforms (up to 2.14x10⁹). The Repeat Test and Pretest Delay capability enable swapping of test locations before proceeding with a test over multiple cycles of the test. You can set the number of violations that can occur before a test status is considered failed. The oscilloscope can also perform a number of actions when a test fails or completes. Actions the oscilloscope can perform when a test fails to include stopping the acquisition, e-mailing a message indicating the test has failed, saving a waveform to file, logging the date and time of the failure, printing a waveform, sending a GPIB SRQ, and sending a trigger out pulse. Actions the oscilloscope can perform when a test completes include sending a GPIB SRQ and sending a trigger out pulse.

The Mask Test Application Software provides statistical results from each test conducted. The results include the Pass/Fail status of the test, the number of waveforms/samples tested, the number of violations found, and the total number of hits within the mask. A secondary display shows the total number of hits in each segment of the mask providing further insight into any mask violations.