Six-in-one oscilloscope premieres at Embedded World

“We’ve seen a dramatic shift in the mainstream market”, said Farrell. “It showed double digit growth in mixed domain oscilloscope sales in what was a down market last year.”

“We’ve seen our MDO series oscilloscope start to outsell the MSO instruments,” he added.

The stimulus according to Farrell is the onrush of wireless into embedded product designs and the need for efficient troubleshooting and debug.”

He cites what he describes as 4 sunrise trends.

“The100MHz to 4GHz market is being driven by system level debug of wireless-enabled designs, the growth of the mixed signal environment, some 50% in two years, and the fact that 25% of oscilloscope users want an integrated spectrum analyser,” Farrell observed.

“Engineers need more functions in an oscilloscope because they have to do a lot more,” he added. “And the oscilloscope is perceived as having more easy to use tools so more functions can be packed in.”

“Instant upgradeability will also be more important. Engineers have no idea what they will be working on in three years time so the ability to upgrade is important,” Farrell argued.

All these trends have driven the launch of the MDO 3000 series. “The key message is the level of integration and infinite versatility,” said Farrell.

To that end the new oscilloscope includes a spectrum analyser, logic analyser, protocol analyser, arbitrary function generator and digital voltmeter.

“No more clutter on the design bench, and no need to spend the acquisition budget on costly, specialised equipment,” Farrell commented. “The scope has been designed so that users can select the functionality and performance needed now ­ ­-- and later.”

Recent research shows over 25% of oscilloscope users now use a spectrum analyser multiple times per week, and over 40% of embedded design projects include some form of wireless capability. As the world’s only oscilloscope with a built-in spectrum analyser, the MDO3000 Series is uniquely positioned to address this paradigm shift for today’s designers. Now engineers can access both time domain and frequency domain analysis in a single instrument. When compared to both standalone oscilloscopes and basic spectrum analysers in this class, the MDO3000 Mixed Domain Oscilloscope provides best-in-class performance and features, providing the convenience of a single instrument without performance trade-offs.

The MDO3000 Series oscilloscopes feature 2 or 4 analogue input channels with bandwidth ranging from 100 MHz to 1GHz, 16 digital channels (optional) and one RF input channel matching the bandwidth of the oscilloscope (9 kHz up to analogue bandwidth). The RF input frequency on any model can be extended to 3GHz.

With the new FastAcq feature, the oscilloscopes offer a more than 280,000 waveforms per second capture rate displayed on a vibrant digital phosphor display for easily finding infrequent anomalies in a signal. More than 125 available trigger combinations, automated serial and parallel bus analysis, innovative Wave Inspector controls, and optional automated power measurements round out the feature-set, and ensure comprehensive tools for every stage of debug. This functionality is extended with the addition of 9 optional serial protocol analysis packages – I²C, SPI, RS-232, USB 2.0, CAN, LIN, FlexRay, MIL-STD-1553, and Audio.

The integrated, optional 50MHz AFG functionality is more than two times faster than competitive offerings with eight times the arbitrary waveform record length. While the integrated digital voltmeter (DVM) provides 4-digit AC RMS, DC, or AC+DC RMS voltage measurements, as well as 5-digit frequency measurements in a large, easy-to-read display that makes changes in your readings instantly visible.  The DVM feature is available free of charge when an MDO3000 product is registered.

The instruments offer 3.9pF passive voltage probing on instruments with a starting price of €2,700/£2,250. For higher speed applications, 1 GHz passive voltage probes are offered standard with 1 GHz instruments. These low capacitance probes minimise the impact on devices under test while reducing signal distortion and cleanly passing the signal to the oscilloscope for measurement.