PicoScope Upgrade Adds I2S Audio Protocol Decoding To PicoScope 6

As Managing Director Alan Tong explained, “PicoScope adapts to the capabilities of your scope, using fast on-board memory if you have a deep-memory device, or your PC’s RAM if you have a budget scope with less memory. You can decode any protocol that is compatible with the sampling rate of your scope. If your scope has enough channels, you can decode multiple serial channels at once or even a mixture of different protocols.”

PicoScope’s serial decoding is easy to use, with decoded data displayed on the same axes as the waveform so you can compare analog and digital domains. A data window below the waveforms shows decoded packets in detail, with filtering, pattern triggering and search options to help you manage large amounts of data. You can export the data to a text file, and load your own mapping files that translate numeric data to text strings. The waveforms and data window are cross-linked, so that selecting a packet in one view automatically highlights it in the other view.

A four-channel scope such as the PicoScope 4424 is perfectly suited to I2S decoding, while its 12-bit resolution, 1% accuracy, built-in spectrum analysis and easy portability make it ideal for the audio engineer. Pico Technology also offers very-high-resolution scopes for precision audio analysis. The company released its first 16-bit scope in 1993, and now the latest model, the USB-powered PicoScope 4262, offers 0.25% DC accuracy, a typical SFDR of 102 dB and ±0.2 dB of bandwidth flatness, as well as a low-distortion signal generator. For applications with large numbers of serial data signals, the PicoScope mixed-signal oscilloscopes with 2 analog and 16 digital channels allow up to 18 signals to be decoded at once.

As always, PicoScope’s advanced features are available free of charge to all owners of PicoScope oscilloscopes. The latest beta release of PicoScope 6 (R6.7) with I2S decoding is available to download now from labs.picotech.com.