Keysight Technologies has introduced the XR3, a compact 14-bit oscilloscope designed for rack-based testing systems. The instrument occupies just one rack unit (1U) and offers four-channel mixed-signal measurement capabilities. Its compact design helps save space, reduce equipment weight and minimise cabling compared with traditional benchtop oscilloscopes.
Automated testing systems used in aerospace, defence, manufacturing and physics are becoming more complex. As a result, engineers need to fit more testing and measurement equipment into limited rack space. Earlier, many systems used a single benchtop oscilloscope, but modern applications often require multiple instruments working together. However, adding more instruments increases space requirements, creates extra cabling and can cause signal timing differences. This has made it difficult for engineers to find equipment that offers both the full measurement capabilities of an oscilloscope and the compact design needed for high-density test systems.
The XR3 removes this trade off, by combining Keysight’s benchtop-class measurement performance with a compact, scalable architecture. Built around Keysight’s MegaZoom 5 custom application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) and a 14-bit analog-to-digital converter (ADC), it delivers a 50-microvolt root mean square (µVrms) noise floor and an update rate of 1.3 million waveforms per second. Multiple instruments can be synchronized to integrate over 100 channels in a single system, while selectable bandwidths from 200 MHz to 1 GHz let engineers scale performance to the application, accelerating debug and reducing time to market.
Key benefits of the XR3 include:
- Uncompromised performance: With 100 Mpts of memory per channel, the XR3 enables engineers to capture small signals and rare events. In addition, zoom, filters, zone triggering, and colour grading testing all run in real-time on hardware, without decreasing XR3’s 1.3 million waveforms per second update rate.
- Expanded synchronized channel capacity: An autosensing 10 MHz reference in/out synchronizes clocks and triggers across multiple units, enabling over 100 time-correlated channels in a single multi-blade system. Hardware based auto-sync, auto-discovery and auto-deskew remove complexity from the synchronization process, providing a simplified setup.
- Improved test system integration: Native software for protocol decodes, power supply test, and jitter analysis covers everyday debug needs. Infiniium 2026 software, native to the XR8 oscilloscope, can also run on an external controller as a unifying user interface to visualize and control multiple XR3 units from a single screen. Separately, the XR3 can be paired with Keysight’s next-generation XR8 oscilloscope to add low-noise, cost-effective high-impedance (Hi-Z) channels without the need to convert to a high-speed channel using an adapter.
Jun Chie, Vice President, Keysight Product Management, said: “Engineers building dense test systems should not have to choose between measurement performance and rack space. The XR3 brings benchtop-class capabilities to a compact, scalable platform, helping customers add synchronized channels, simplify integration, and preserve measurement confidence as their systems grow.”
