A family of high-performance RF, microwave and pulse probes allowing cost-effective fingertip browsing of broadband signals up to 5 GHz (10 Gb/s).
With less than 0.4 pF tip capacitance and ground-referred loading of 220 Ω to 910 Ω, the PicoConnect probes are less invasive than the majority of existing and more costly probing solutions. To achieve measurement accuracies down to a few percent they are ratio-compensated for their typical application: the probing of transmission lines and ports between 40 Ω and 100 Ω (80 Ω to 200 Ω differential).
Suited to interfacing with any measuring instrument with 50 Ω inputs, PicoConnect probes allow broadband oscilloscope and spectrum analyzer users to browse circuitry, backplanes, interconnect and systems, typically without interrupting their function, and to do so across multiple channels without breaking a budget.
The family offers probe division ratios of ÷5, ÷10 and ÷20 with impedances to suit higher-voltage analog and pulse applications. For each ratio there is a DC or AC coupled option, the latter important when DC bias must not be disturbed. The whole family is realized as a set of interchangeable SMA(f) probe heads that can be used with any appropriate 50 Ω cable, or accessories such as filters, dividers, amplifiers and further attenuation.