Understanding oscilloscope bandwidth, rise time and signal fidelity

When an oscilloscope user chooses an oscilloscope for making critical measurements, banner
specifications are often the only criterion used to make this choice. The top three oscilloscope banner
specification categories are:

- Bandwidth
- Sample Rate
- Record Length

And of these banner specification categories, the number one asked for capability in an oscilloscope is
bandwidth. After all, more bandwidth means higher performance, right? Well, not necessarily. This
article will point out the pitfalls in this very simple assumption. Depending upon your expectation to see
and analyze signals as they really are, more knowledge about the true performance of your oscilloscope
will be needed.