Data Analyzers : LeCroy DDA 760Zi

LeCroy Disk Drive Analyzers (DDA) assist data storage design engineers by integrating tools that improve the time to market of new products and accelerate understanding and failure analysis on existing drives. LeCroy continues that tradition with the DDA 7 Zi Series equipped with its powerful Disk Drive Analysis toolset. Capture, view, and analyze the wave shape of high-speed, complex drive signals with speed and integrity.

Data Storage applications are memory intensive as capturing multiple sectors or a complete track of data can be important in troubleshooting a design or characterizing media.

The X-Stream II architecture enables fast and accurate measurements and analysis of disk drive signals. Memory can be extended to 128 Mpts/Ch (256 Mpts/Ch on 2 Ch) using Option L. Both the DDA 760Zi and DDA 735Zi offer the convenience of selectable 50 Ω or 1 MΩ inputs. The standard 20 Mpts of waveform memory and 40 GS/s capture on two channels, means multiple drive sectors can be acquired at once.

Acquire a head signal up to 6 GHz, and then QuickZoom it from the front panel. The DDA copies and expands the drive signal automatically. Simply scroll horizontally and vertically to examine any sector. Multiple zooms let you view up to eight separate areas of the head signal; each zoom comes in a distinct color. Disk drive parameters let you characterize the pulse width variation or signal-to-noise ratio across a region. Failure Analysis engineers can store and recall golden waveforms and panel setups to compare problem drives with the known good drives. Analog-to-digital converters running at speeds up to 40 GS/s ensure the right sensitivity to measure today’s high-speed read channels. In every DDA, you can run your customer-developed scripts to view the captured signal with the filters matched to your channel and media. Custom user scripts can be created in MATLAB, Visual Basic, Excel or other formats.

The DDA’s disk triggers allow you to set up a series of events in the signal that then cause a trigger. For example, qualify the signal on the index signal and then capture all the sectors of information on the track. As memory is increased in the DDA, more sectors can be captured, with up to 50 picosecond/sample time resolution. Up to 15,000 sectors of data can be gathered with the DDA 7 Zi analyzers. An optional capability, Streaming Sequence, uses the X-Stream II and the fast hardware architecture of the DDA to streamup to 300,000 segments of data to memory; all taken at a high trigger rate.

One press on the DDA menu takes you directly to the Disk Drive Analyzer features. The familiar controls on the front panel, coupled with a natural, context-sensitive graphical user-interface, react quickly to your commands. Functionality is exactly where you expect it to be.

The DDA 7 Zi provides one button access to all the tools needed to accurately debug and analyze disk drive operation.

Simultaneously connecting low-speed signals, like index and servo gate, and high-speed signals, like read channels has never been easier. With integrated 50 Ω and 1 MΩ inputs on all models, there is no longer a need for expensive adapters.