Software release addresses new serial bus standards

24th June 2015

Mick Elliott

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In response to the proliferation of serial bus communications in electronic designs, the latest version of PicoScope now has decoding and analysis of sixteen protocols included as standard. When used with the deep memory included in most PicoScope oscilloscopes, this new software release creates a powerful debugging and troubleshooting tool at no extra cost to PicoScope owners.

PicoScope R6.11.4 beta can be downloaded free of charge and runs with any PicoScope.

Supported protocols, grouped by application, are as follows:

Automotive: CAN, LIN, FlexRay, and SENT (Fast and Slow)

Avionics: ARINC 429

Computer & networking: RS-232/UART, USB (LS, FS, HS), PS/2, Ethernet 100BASE-TX, Ethernet 10BASE-T

Embedded systems: I²C, I²S, SPI, and 1-Wire

Lighting: DMX 512

Model railways: DCC

“New serial bus standards are emerging fast”, said Trevor Smith, Business Development Manager at Pico Technology, “each one optimised for a specific application set. PicoScope serial decoding and analysis tools help engineers to observe the data flow in their designs, identify signal integrity issues, and provide measurement statistics to validate reliable operation of the device.”

“PicoScope users requested support for new standards, so we’ve addressed the most popular ones, and have even more in development. We also took the opportunity to streamline the code to accelerate decoding performance, which is now amongst the fastest in the industry.”

The PicoScope serial decoding display can be viewed as a basic bus waveform correlated with the source analog or digital channels. This layout helps to troubleshoot data errors caused by noise spikes, faulty line drivers and mismatched impedances.

Alternatively, the table view lists every packet or frame with timings, decoded data, status flags and optional voltage measurements. You can filter and search the table by any field, export data to a spreadsheet, and even define human-readable names for specified address data values by creating a “link file”.

PicoScope can decode multiple serial buses at once, with any mixture of protocols, limited only by the number of channels (maximum of 20 for MSO models).