New Oscilloscope Series from LeCroy

The LeCroy WaveRunner Xi-A is the latest generation of the popular WaveRunner Xi oscilloscope platform. The combination of WaveRunner Xi power and flexibility with new architecture advances first tested and validated in LeCroy’s revolutionary Zi oscilloscopes provides the WaveRunner Xi-A with the fastest acquisition and most responsive front panel in its class. The PC system in the WaveRunner Xi-A boasts a new motherboard, augmented with an Intel Core2 Duo processor, faster RAM, and a faster hard drive. This results in a 40-70% speed improvement over competitive units in deep memory analysis, and serial data decoding. The software improvements also incorporate key elements of X-Stream II architecture, providing preview and abort capabilities that permit the user instant control of the oscilloscope without any hold-off or delay.

Designed for long memory operation and responsiveness, X-Stream II technology enables high throughput of data. This architecture uses variable waveform segment lengths to improve CPU cache memory efficiency resulting in faster processing compared to other oscilloscopes. This eliminates the trade-offs between long memory length and quick processing.

TriggerScan rare event capture technology detects and captures more anomalies per second. TriggerScan uses high-speed hardware to detect undesired behaviors, then captures and displays them in a persistence mode for additional analysis of glitches, runts, and timing anomalies. A built in trainer identifies normal signal behavior and then constructs a large set of rare event trigger setups that target abnormal behavior. TriggerScan captures only the signals of interest and provides answers in minutes instead of hours.

The WaveRunner Xi-A Spectrum Analyzer option allows customers to effectively debug in the frequency domain. The option provides common controls of a spectrum analyzer, allowing a user to navigate a signal by specifying center frequency, span and resolution bandwidth. The Spectrum Analyzer option provides an additional feature to annotate peaks which is not available in spectrum analyzers. This feature allows the user to highlight a user-selectable number of peaks and illustrates the frequency and gain at the specific peaks, significantly reducing debug time.

LXI is based on the open standard LAN (Ethernet) for system interdevice communication, and has been widely accepted in the test and measurement industry. LXI leverages the mature and robust LAN standard by offering a low cost solution that that is backward compatible and supported by all computer platforms. It also allows for automatic discovery, addressing, asset and network management, permitting engineers to build powerful, web enabled test systems in less time.

In addition, all WaveRunner Xi-A models are compatible with LeCroy’s optional low-speed serial triggering and decode packages to help engineers quickly analyze I2C, SPI, UART, RS-232, CAN, LIN and FlexRay protocols through the use of easy to read transparent overlays, search/zoom capabilities, and tabular displays. A full set of analysis tools, including WaveScanTM, an advanced search & analysis feature; WaveStreamTM, a fast viewing mode; and LabNotebook™, a unique tool for documentation and report generation combine high performance and ease of use with the best tools for understanding and validating a design. The Xi-A oscilloscopes are also hot-plug ready for LeCroy’s 36-channel Mixed Signal Oscilloscope.

The WaveRunner MXi-A models (400 MHz – 2 GHz) go one step further and ship standard with a variety of analysis tools and application programs, such as Tracks, Histograms, long memory FFTs, user-defined functions, jitter and timing analysis, and are also compatible with mixed signal options, power device analysis, and a host of other applications. The WaveRunner MXi series goes beyond debug and validation to help engineers understand the root causes of complex problems.