LeCroy has entered the mid-range sub-300MHz oscilloscope market with a range of scopes which are the lowest cost instruments it has yet offered.
The launch of the WaveAce range of oscilloscopes which range in price from £620 to £1,827 for the top of the range 300MHz instrument will see LeCroy competing with Tektronix and Agilent Technologies for the first time in Europe’s economy scope market which is valued at $68m.
Up against established products, the TDS2000B from Tektronix and DSO3000A from Agilent, LeCroy hopes to stand out from the competition on price, on looks – “this is the iPhone of the scope market”, and on features – an 18,000 point record length and debug and analysis capabilities match those on higher priced instruments.
“We recognised the need to develop a lower cost scope for this mid-range market. We also had to set up the necessary distribution sales channels which are key to this market,” said Nicola Gomiero, sales manager at LeCroy.
This launch has been a number of years in the planning and Gomiero recognised that the company, which is a supplier of high-end and expensive scopes to European research organisations such as CERN, will need to “develop its image in this new market and this will take time”, said Gomiero.
The WaveAce range offers one and two channel scopes with bandwidths ranging from 60MHz in the £620 scope to the top end 300MHz instrument with 1Gsample/s sampling rate per channel. The 18kpoint memory length in the scopes priced £770 and over is more than in equivalent instruments. Even the entry-level scope has a 4kpoint memory length. All models have a colour display.