The Agilent 86100A Infiniium DCA is a modular wide-bandwidth oscilloscope designed for testing high-speed digital and optical waveforms up to 40 Gb/s. The platform combines three instrument functions in a single chassis: a general-purpose repetitive sampling oscilloscope, a digital communications analyzer optimized for eye-diagram analysis, and a time domain reflectometer for characterizing electrical system components. Operators select the instrument mode and begin measurements through a Windows-based user interface with familiar front-panel controls.

The 86100A supports digital communications analysis for transmitters operating from 100 Mb/s to 40 Gb/s, including industry-standard mask testing with built-in margin analysis, extinction ratio measurements, and eye measurements (crossing percentage, eye height and width, '1' and '0' levels, jitter, rise and fall times). The TDR mode addresses high-speed applications where signal integrity matters — optimizing microstrip lines, PC board traces, SMA edge launchers, and coaxial cables where imperfections cause signal distortion and reflections. The oscilloscope mode provides time and amplitude measurements including rise time, fall time, jitter RMS and peak-to-peak, period, frequency, pulse width, duty cycle, overshoot, average power, and standard voltage parameters.

Brand Heritage

Agilent Technologies was spun off from Hewlett-Packard in 1999, taking with it HP's test and measurement business. In 2014, Agilent further divided when its electronic measurement business became Keysight Technologies. The 86100A Infiniium DCA was developed during the Agilent era and represents a direct continuation of the HP digital communications analyzer product lineage; current-generation successor instruments are sold today under the Keysight brand.

Compare Other Models in This Series

The Infiniium DCA family centers on the 86100A mainframe and its associated plug-in modules. The mainframe provides the timebase, trigger system, display, file management, and measurement processing common to all configurations; the plug-in modules determine the specific optical wavelengths, electrical bandwidths, and clock recovery capabilities available for measurement. This modular architecture allows a single mainframe to address requirements ranging from 155 Mb/s SONET compliance work through 40 Gb/s waveform characterization by selecting the appropriate module set.

Within the optical module family, choices range from the multimode 86101A and 86103A at 2.85 GHz, through the single-mode 86105A at 20 GHz, to the 86106B at 28 GHz, the 86109A at 30 GHz, and the 86109B 40 Gb/s receiver. Electrical-only modules include the dual-channel 86112A (12.4/20 GHz) and the 83484A (26.5/50 GHz). TDR is addressed through the 54753A single-ended and 54754A differential modules.

Each pre-owned 86100A configuration listed below — whether mainframe or specific plug-in module — is its own dedicated product page with condition-matched pricing. Plug-in modules are catalogued separately from the mainframe so that buyers building a specific configuration can verify availability and condition of each component independently.

Module selection within the family is driven by three primary axes: optical wavelength range (750–860 nm for short-wavelength multimode, 1000–1600 nm for long-wavelength multimode and single-mode work), optical bandwidth (2.85 GHz for compliance-rate applications through 40 Gb/s for the highest-speed waveform analysis), and electrical bandwidth (12.4 GHz through 50 GHz depending on module). The 86106B and 86109A add the 40 GHz electrical channel for combined optical and high-speed electrical measurement in a single module.

Reference filter support also varies across the family. The 86101A, 86103A, and 86105A offer switchable filter options covering SONET/SDH rates from OC-3 (155 Mb/s) through OC-48 (2.488 Gb/s), with the 86105A extending to OC-192 (9.953 Gb/s). The 86106B includes OC-192 filtering as standard and adds 10 Gigabit Ethernet and OC-192 FEC rates with Option 410. The 86109A is supplied without internal filters and is designed for minimum distortion of high-speed pulse display rather than standards compliance work.

Additional differences in specifications beyond the few shown above are not listed here — see each model's full specifications below.

Product Core & Specifications

About this used unit

• Warranty included
• Functional verification included
• Standard Calibration Upgrade Options: No Calibration Required, NIST Traceable, Z540.1 or ISO 17025 with Data, Z540.3 Guardbanding with Data.
• Note that unnecessary accessories may not be included (contact Test Architect to confirm).

Please review the Manufacturer's Data Sheet to verify published specifications. Feedback on this webpage is always welcome — please reach out to your Test Architect at any time for questions or concerns. Thank you, we truly appreciate you being our customer.