High-speed, deep-memory waveform measurement has come to the land of PC-based oscilloscopes, in what Pico Technology claims is a “world’s first.” If that sort of hyperbolic marketing-speak makes you raise an eyebrow, you’re not alone. Still, the new PicoScope 3000E series does achieve several “firsts” for USB-powered scopes, including a 5 GS/s sampling rate, up to 500 MHz bandwidth and 2 GS of deep memory.
And there’s another key feature of the PicoScope line that’s worth mentioning: portability. Engineers on the move can carry their scopes in their laptop bags for on-site use, or, as Pico puts it, “No need to travel to the lab, the lab travels with you.”
The scopes’ connection to a PC, moreover, simplifies the saving, sharing and manipulation of data. Results can be integrated into reports and data can be shared with colleagues — even those without a PicoScope.
Operating system aside, additional software features include:
- Mask limit testing: Designed for production and debugging environments, mask limit testing allows comparison of live signals against known good signals.
- Triggering: While many digital oscilloscopes still use a trigger architecture based on analog comparators — which can limit trigger sensitivity at high bandwidths and cause time and amplitude errors impossible to calibrate out — Pico uses fully digital triggering using actual digitized data. This allows triggering on the smallest signals, even at full bandwidth.
- Persistence mode: Old and new data can be superimposed, making it easier to spot glitches and dropouts and estimate their relative frequency.
- Actions and alarms: PicoScope can be programmed so that events such as measurement and mask limit failures, trigger events and buffers full trigger an action or alarm.
The PicoScope 7 user interface allows access to 40,000 buffers of sample data, 40 serial protocol decoders, and various automated measurements and test tools available for free download. Alternatively, the device can be integrated into a user’s existing system via the Pico software development kit (SDK), allowing the measurement of high-speed signals up to 10 bits of resolution (up to 14 bits with enhanced resolution) for automated test and verification applications.
