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test&measurementZONE Products for the week of December 1, 2008
Tektronix Says…
Industry-Best Oscilloscopes at Entry-Level Price for Mixed-Signal Designs
MSO2000 Mixed-Signal and DPO2000 Digital Phosphor Series Offer Feature-Rich Tools and Ease of Use in a Portable Package
Tektronix, Inc., a leading worldwide provider of test, measurement and monitoring instrumentation, announces the new MSO2000 Mixed Signal and DPO2000 Digital Phosphor oscilloscopes. The new series provide powerful tools to simplify the debug of mixed signal designs including Wave Inspector search and navigation tools, automatic decoding of serial data busses, unique FilterVu variable low pass filters to reduce unwanted noise from signals, all in a portable, affordable package. With bandwidths up to 200MHz, the new series complement the existing MSO4000, DPO4000, and DPO3000 oscilloscope series models providing the most complete and capable oscilloscope offerings for engineers working on embedded system designs.
Virtually every electronic product designed and produced today is an embedded system and may contain microprocessors, microcontrollers, DSPs, RAM, Flash, EEPROMs, FPGAs, A/Ds, D/As, and other I/O. In recent years, embedded system designs have replaced parallel buses with serial data buses such as I2C, SPI, RS-232, CAN and LIN. On a serial bus, a single signal may include address, control, data, and clock information; the complexity presents significant debug challenges for design engineers. The MSO2000 and DPO2000 Series address these problems with the most integrated serial data triggering, protocol decoding, and analysis capabilities in an entry-level oscilloscope. Furthermore, the MSO2000 provides the ability to time-correlate analog and digital signals with up to 4 analog and 16 digital channels, for troubleshooting the mixed signal portions of embedded systems. The MSO2000 and DPO2000 Series are ideal for embedded designers and educators teaching design principles.
"Designers need powerful yet easy-to-use tools for debugging both analog and digital signals and at different price ranges," said Bob Bluhm, vice president, Value Scopes Product Line, Tektronix. "The MSO2000 and DPO2000 provide excellent performance, serial data debug for common standards, and compelling value. They are part of our new-generation platform that includes the MSO4000, DPO4000 and DPO3000 Series, providing engineers a continuum of options from 100 MHz to 1GHz. The newest models offer intuitive operation, measurement confidence, a portable package, and are ideal for engineers wanting to more efficiently test their designs."
"The new Tektronix MSO/DPO2000 series scopes will meet many needs, from design to manufacturing and from production repair to service," said Alfred Mora, electrical engineer, Fixed Scanning Business Unit, Datalogic Scanning, Inc. "It combines scope, logic analyzer, and protocol analyzer features into an easy-to-use, portable package. The mixed signal functionality, serial decode, small footprint, and affordable price provide compelling value."
Best-in-Class Performance and Ease of Use
The MSO2000 and DPO2000 Series of oscilloscopes each consist of three models ranging from 100 MHz to 200 MHz, with two or four analog channels, the familiar Tektronix front-panel layout, serial triggering, protocol decode, USB plug-and-play PC connectivity, a seven inch widescreen bright TFT display, and a three-year warranty. The MSO2000 models also include 16 digital channels, providing up to 20 time-correlated channels to debug both analog and digital data. All models contain 1M points of record length on each channel and a 1 GS/s sampling rate on all channels, ensuring at least 5X over-sampling of the signal. Additionally, the new models provide 5,000 waveforms per second capture rate to aid discovery of transient events.
Unwanted noise can make debugging of intended signal attributes a difficult task. The new FilterVu variable low-pass filter provides a powerful tool to block unwanted noise from signals while still capturing glitches and other signal details up to the full bandwidth of the oscilloscope. The new MSO2000 and DPO2000 Series are the only oscilloscopes to simultaneously display the filtered waveform and high frequency details up to the full bandwidth of the oscilloscope.
"Motor drive signals can be particularly noisy," said Mark Hastings, electrical design engineer, Cypress Semiconductor. "FilterVu on the Tektronix MSO/DPO2000 Series is one of the more unique features we've seen on a scope. With FilterVu we were able to filter out motor drive noise and clearly see the underlying digital signal characteristics. The feature will also be useful for demodulating signals. We've come to expect this type of innovation from Tektronix."
The MSO2000 and DPO2000 Series include the groundbreaking Wave Inspector search engine on all analog and digital channels, an unprecedented set of easy-to-use tools that make simple and efficient work of finding events of interest in long records. Wave Inspector also provides the ability to automatically search through an acquisition and mark all occurrences of a user-specified event then navigate between the marks effortlessly. With Wave Inspector navigation, the MSO2000 and DPO2000 Series aid engineers to quickly find and solve difficult problems.
All models include standard a USB host port on the front of the instrument and USB device port on the rear of the instrument. The front USB port supports a USB flash drive. The rear port is USBTMC compatible which enables communication and control via a PC. The rear port is also PictBridge certified for printing to PictBridge certified printers.
EN-Genius Says…
Tektronix has almost outdone itself with this product line, by positioning its new oscilloscopes in a discernible niche existing between higher priced scopes coming in at about $5000 and up, and lower-priced instruments priced at less than $1500.
 This puts Tek's latest MSO2000 mixed-signal scopes and the DPO2000 Digital Phosphor Series a notch above the company's TDS1000 and TDS2000 instruments that cover the 40-MHz to 200-MHz maximum bandwidth niche. In the same class is Agilent's DSO3000 Series (with instruments with bandwidths to 60 MHz to 200 MHz). Ditto for LeCroy's WaveAce wares (with 60-MHz to 300-MHz models).
Overlapping Boundaries
Of course, if you dish out more than $5000, the world opens into entirely different territory. Nonetheless, there's a borderline overlap into Tek's DPO3000 regime (with its lowest-end 100-MHz scopes), as well as the company's TDS3000C Series boxes (the low end of that product line also offers a 100-MHz box).
Likewise, there's some low-end overlap with the Agilent Technologies DSO/MSO6000 Series (with its 100-MHz bandwidth versions) and its DSO5000 scopes (the low end there has 100-MHz versions, too). Similarly, LeCroy's WaveJet oscilloscope line includes instruments at the low end with maximum bandwidths of 100 MHz.
The Debug Hole
When I spoke with Tektronix product manager Dave Farrell about these latest DSP-equipped mixed-signal scopes with color-coded traces, he mentioned that the company's research showed a "debug hole" in the $1500 to $5000 range. "Parallel busing as well as serial communications is part of many feature-rich low-cost designs these days," he added.
"Say you're designing a whiz-bang toy or a moderate-speed automotive subsystem," says Farrell. "You could very likely be working with both types of buses.
"Your needs are almost the same as engineers debugging higher bandwidth parallel and serial systems. What you need are similar functions, but at lower bandwidths and at a lower price-entry point, and that's where the MSO2000 Mixed-Signal and DPO2000 Digital Phosphor Series come into play."
No Need For Speed
Farrell cites some Tek research that shows that 60% of users working with serial data in low-cost embedded designs can get along just fine with maximum scope bandwidths of less than 300 MHz. Similarly, almost half of the users making parallel bus measurements for El Cheapo embedded systems need scopes with bandwidth requirements above 300 MHz.
"The MSO2000 Mixed-Signal and DPO2000 Digital Phosphor Series fill the niche," says Farrell. "There are no competitively priced models that deliver a comparable suite of serial and mixed-signal debugging tools."
For its part, the MSO2000 Series brings sixteen digital channels to the party, enabling you to see and time-correlate both analog and digital signals. This includes having triggering functions across all 16 channels as well as up to 4 analog channels. All in all, with a 4-channel flavor, you could view 4 analog channels, 16 digital waveforms, and capture two time-correlated bus waveforms – all on one box that will readily fit on a crowded workbench.
Extended Record Lengths
Farrell notes that record length needs have also increased, climbing dramatically over the past few years. In step, Tek's low-end scopes offer 1-Mpoint buffers available on all channels, not just one channel.
One of the most common applications requiring long record length is serial data analysis. Typical embedded systems contain processors, microcontrollers, and DSPs. There are usually EEPROMs, FPGAs, and data converters in the mix as well. In the not-too-distant past, these ICs would have communicated across parallel buses, but today's low-cost embedded systems use low pin-count serial busing. Some even use differential signaling, just like their high-speed RapidIO and PCI Express counterparts. In these slower-speed serial bus architectures, a single serial line can carry address, control, data, and embedded clocks.
The Wave Inspector Tool
For testing and debugging systems comprised of serial components and serial buses, Tek's MSO2000 and DPO2000 boxes now offer the kind of search tools that the company's more expensive top-end models had. As mentioned in the press release, the tool is called Wave Inspector.
The Wave Inspector tool lets you search and navigate through very long records. In the past, you would have had to manually scroll through a captured waveform, perhaps counting and converting bits, looking for what might have caused an errant event. But, with Tek's MSO2000 and DPO2000 Series scopes they automatically search through acquired data sets. The scopes essentially look for instances of your pre-defined criteria.
The million-point record length, which is standard on all models, is behind every analog channel, too, so you get high-resolution capture and long time-span capability that can let you examine signals in exquisite detail.
The digital phosphor acquisition versions also have capture rates of a whopping 5000 waveform/s. That kind of speed can let you expeditiously find glitches and see transients, using the scope's variable persistence and intensity grading.
Serial Debug Features
Tek's MSO2000 and DPO2000 scopes also offer serial debug features, with serial triggering and decoding. "The decode feature is entirely automatic," emphasizes Farrell. "In fact, these are the only scopes capable of serial-decode at this price point. They let you trigger on packet-level content, so you can set them up to trigger on a specific address or a specific data value."
The bus waveform decoded packet content can include Start, Address, Read/Write, Data, and Stop information. Moreover, timing waveforms can help you determine the values of multiple signals.
Results can also be presented in an event table, a feature that bridges gaps between conventional hardware probing and what happens as a result of software. When debugging the software side, you can search and mark packet content and view findings in the event-table format, even as you view multiple buses simultaneously. Captured packets are shown in this tabular format just like you'd expect to see them on a logic analyzer. The packets are time-stamped and listed consecutively, with columns for address, data, etc.
When looking at digital data streams, highs are identified in green, with logic lows in blue. The scope's digital channel indicators are also color-coded to match channel labels on digital probes in use. The on-screen waveforms are also grouped logically, and you can set thresholds for an entire group at once.
Variable Low-Pass Filtering
These scopes also include a feature Tektronix calls FilterVu, which is a variable low-pass filter that permits filtering out unwanted noise from a displayed signal, while still capturing unexpected glitches, up to the full bandwidth of the oscilloscope, which means you won’t lose high-frequency spikes, noise, random glitches, or infrequent anomalies. FilterVu works by showing two waveforms: a waveform that can be filtered (the foreground waveform) and a glitch-capture waveform (the background waveform).
FilterVu lets you control and select the low-pass filter frequency applied to a displayed signal. To reveal the intended signal, you would press a FilterVu button and then adjust the low-pass filter frequency to block out noise. The resulting clean waveform lets you more readily locate signal edges and measure amplitude levels. Filter frequency readouts also let you characterize the frequencies of the noise, without the need to do a FFT (fast Fourier transform) in software. This nifty level of filtering is available even on a single-shot waveform.
US prices range from $2580 for a two-channel 100-MHz DPO2012 to $5150 for a four-channel 200-MHz MSO2024 with an included P6316 digital probe.
A limited version of NI LabVIEW SignalExpress Tektronix Edition is included free of charge with the MSO2000 and DPO2000 Series; users can upgrade to the standard version of NI LabVIEW SignalExpress Tektronix Edition for a MSRP of $699 which includes more than 200 measurement acquisition, analysis, and reporting features.
These are just a few of the attributes of these feature rich instruments. There's a lot more to this story, which can't be told in the limited space here. As such, be sure to check out the data sheet.
Data Sheet
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