Agilent Technologies Introduces Rapid Automation for Agilent Infiniium Oscilloscopes via User-Defined Application

With continued strain on engineering budgets and resources, measurement automation continues to be an important way for development teams to lower costs. In addition to saving time and money, automation provides setup and measurement consistency across sites and scopes. UDA software takes advantage of the Infiniium 90000 Series oscilloscope's lowest noise floor and flattest response to give unprecedented measurement accuracy.

Agilent's UDA software is ideal for situations where existing applications do not provide the exact automation capabilities engineers require. UDA software is fully compatible with Infiniium baseline applications, including EZJIT, EZJIT Plus, serial data analysis, serial data equalization, and InfiniiScan software. It provides full, detailed HTML reports for the simplest to the most-complicated measurements.

This application features basic and advanced debug modes. Basic mode provides simple automation for measurements such as frequency and rms noise. Advanced mode allows UDA software to control Agilent Infiniium 90000, 80000 and 8000 Series oscilloscopes and any Agilent/HP instruments connected to a network via Agilent's IO Libraries. With this capability, engineers can develop their own custom applications with the look and precision of complex and more-expensive applications. Advanced mode allows engineering teams to include custom logos in their software and HTML reports. It provides full automation for the most complex measurements, including function math. Advanced mode enables engineers to import images of the measurement environment into their customized automated application to ensure measurements are taken the same way every time.

Agilent's UDA software has the look and feel of Infiniium's highly successful compliance applications such as DisplayPort, HDMI and SATA 6G. Unlike compliance applications, UDA is completely customizable. Users are not constrained to preset tests and conditions. With UDA, engineers have the flexibility to create the tests they want and the settings they need. Engineers can develop applications for unsupported technologies such as LVDS, SDI and flash memory. However, because of the UDA software's flexibility, the software is not constrained to compliance applications. For example, engineers could use UDA software with Infiniium's world-class EZJIT Plus software to take jitter measurements under various conditions to find worst-case jitter conditions.

Engineers have been asking for the ability to make custom automated measurements, said Scott Sampl, vice president and general manager of Agilent's oscilloscopes business. We are excited to give our customers the flexibility they need to make measurements outside of our normal compliance suite.

The Agilent N5467A user-defined application comes with its own development environment that can be downloaded free of charge from the Web at www.agilent.com/find/uda. Engineers can then develop any application they need. Once the application is exported to an oscilloscope, it can be run as a fully integrated application, at which time the N5467A license is required. Engineers can also develop an application on the oscilloscope and generate and run the application in a single step, saving the time required to copy files from the PC to the Infiniium scope.

Engineers can share their project files at www.agilent.com/find/share_uda. This global repository of applications is currently unmatched by any other oscilloscope vendor. A number of applications are available at this Web site, including SDI, LVDS and trigger search programs.