Cross Reference

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Cross Reference helps to speed serial analysis by translating hexadecimal address values into human readable form.

So, for example, instead of displaying "Address: 7E" in the Table View, the corresponding text “Set Motor Speed” will be shown instead, or whatever is appropriate. Cross referencing is done with a simple spreadsheet link file.

Serial Decoding: Link File

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Export: Table view data can be saved in a spreadsheet format file for off line viewing and analysis. Statistics and cross reference information from the table is preserved in the spreadsheet file.

Export

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Some oscilloscopes struggle when you enable deep memory; the screen update rate slows and controls become unresponsive. PicoScope 6407 Series avoids this limitation with use of a dedicated hardware acceleration engine inside the oscilloscope. Its massively parallel design effectively creates the waveform image to be displayed on the PC screen and allows the continuous capture and display to the screen of 2.5 billion samples every second.

PicoScope oscilloscopes manage deep memory better than competing oscilloscopes, both PC-based and benchtop.

The PicoScope 6000 Series is fitted with fourth-generation hardware acceleration (HAL4). This speeds up areas of oscilloscope operation such as allowing waveform update rates in excess of 170,000 waveforms per second and the segmented memory / rapid trigger modes. The hardware acceleration engine ensures that any concerns about the USB connection or PC processor performance being a bottleneck are eliminated.

An important specification to understand when evaluating oscilloscope performance is the waveform update rate, which is expressed as waveforms per second (wfms/s). While the sample rate indicates how frequently the oscilloscope samples the input signal within one waveform, or cycle, the waveform capture rate refers to how quickly an oscilloscope acquires waveforms.

Oscilloscopes with high waveform capture rates provide better visual insight into signal behavior and dramatically increase the probability that the oscilloscope will quickly capture transient anomalies such as jitter, runt pulses and glitches – that you may not even know exist.

PicoScope deep memory oscilloscopes use hardware acceleration to achieve over 170,000 wfms/s.

An important specification to understand when evaluating oscilloscope performance is the waveform update rate which is expressed as waveforms per second (wfms/s). While the sample rate indicates how frequently the oscilloscope samples the input signal within one waveform, or cycle, the waveform capture rate refers to how quickly an oscilloscope acquires waveforms.

All oscilloscopes have an inherent “dead-time” between each waveform acquisition, when it is processing the previously acquired waveform. During the oscilloscope’s dead-time, any signal activity that may be occurring will be missed. Because of oscilloscope dead-time, capturing random and infrequent events becomes a matter of statistical probability. The more often a scope updates waveforms for a given observation time, the higher the probability of capturing and viewing an elusive event.

Oscilloscopes with high waveform capture rates provide better visual insight into signal behaviour and dramatically increase the probability that the oscilloscope will quickly capture transient anomalies such as jitter, runt pulses and glitches – that you may not even know exist.

PicoScope Fast mode uses dedicated hardware to accelerate the waveform capture process. Multiple streams of data are processed in parallel to construct the waveforms that will be displayed on the screen. Fast mode is available in all PicoScope series oscilloscopes, with the following typical performance levels*:

• USB 2.0 deep memory models (PicoScope 3000/4000/5000 Series) to 80,000 wfms/s.
• USB 3.0 SuperSpeed deep memory models (PicoScope 3207 & 6000 Series) to 100,000 wfms/s.

The animation below shows a 5 MHz clock signal with infrequent glitches captured on a PicoScope 6404D. The glitches occur approximately 25 times per second. Total capture time for each acquisition is 1 µs, so the probability of capturing the glitch with each capture is just 0.000025. But with a waveform update rate of more than 100,000 waveforms per second the scope will capture this glitch within 0.4 seconds on average. In this example, the scope captured the error several times in less than 3 seconds.

 

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Pico was the first company to introduce such fast waveform update rates to PC oscilloscopes. Our waveform update rate outperforms all other PC oscilloscopes and many traditional benchtop oscilloscopes costing considerably more.

Listed below are some example specifications for maximum waveforms per second together with the test conditions used. Note that for applications that require even faster waveform capture, most of our oscilloscopes have a rapid trigger (segmented memory) mode that can collect bursts of waveforms at rates as fast as 1 million per second

Waveform buffer and navigator Ever spotted a glitch on a waveform, but by the time you’ve stopped the scope it has gone? With PicoScope you no longer need to worry about missing glitches or other transient events. PicoScope can store the last ten thousand waveforms in its circular waveform buffer. The buffer navigator provides an efficient way of navigating and searching through waveforms effectively letting you turn back time. Tools such as mask limit testing can also be used to scan through each waveform in the buffer looking for mask violations.

Waveform buffer and navigator ×

PicoScope oscilloscope software has the ability to store more than one waveform in its waveform buffer. Depending on the settings you have chosen, PicoScope can store from 1 to 10,000 waveforms in its buffer.

When you click the Start button or change a capture setting, PicoScope clears the buffer and then adds a new waveform to it every time the oscilloscope captures data. This continues until the buffer is full or you click the Stop button. Once you have stopped capturing data, you can then review each captured waveform to find the event you want. You can also save the whole buffer and examine it at a later date.
 

Buying a PicoScope is not like making a purchase from other oscilloscope companies, where optional extras considerably increase the price. With our scopes, high-end features such as serial decoding, mask limit testing, advanced math channels, segmented memory, and a signal generator are all included in the price.

To protect your investment, both the PC software and firmware inside the scope can be updated. Pico Technology have a long history of providing new features for free through software downloads. We deliver on our promises of future enhancements year after year, unlike many other companies in the field. Users of our products reward us by becoming lifelong customers and frequently recommending us to their colleagues.

PicoScope software dedicates almost all of the display area to the waveform. Using the display of your laptop or desktop the area is much bigger and of a higher resolution than with a traditional benchtop scope. This is a huge advantage when displaying 8 high-resolution channels.

With a large display area available, you can also create a customizable split-screen display, and view multiple channels or different views of the same signal at the same time. As the example opposite shows, the software can even show both oscilloscope and spectrum analyzer traces at once. Additionally, each waveform shown works with individual zoom, pan, and filter settings for ultimate flexibility.

The PicoScope software can be controlled by mouse, touchscreen or keyboard shortcuts.

PicoScope Software: Advanced display

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On many oscilloscopes waveform math just means simple calculations such as A + B. With a PicoScope it means much, much more.

With PicoScope 6 you can select simple functions such as addition and inversion, or open the equation editor to create complex functions involving filters (low pass, high pass, band pass and band stop filters), trigonometry, exponentials, logarithms, statistics, integrals and derivatives.

Waveform math also allows you to plot live signals alongside historic peak, averaged or filtered waveforms. You can also use math for example to graph the changing duty cycle or frequency of your signal.

With PicoScope math channels you can display up to eight real or calculated channels in each scope view. If you run out of space, just open another scope view and add more.

The custom probes feature allows you to correct for gain, attenuation, offsets and nonlinearities in probes, sensors or transducers that you connect to the oscilloscope.

A simple use would be to linearly scale the output of a current probe so that it correctly displays amperes. A more advanced use would be to scale the output of a nonlinear temperature sensor using the table lookup function.

Definitions for standard Pico-supplied oscilloscope probes and current clamps are included. User-created probes may be saved for later use.

Alarms

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Alarms

PicoScope can be programmed to execute actions when certain events occur.

The events that can trigger an alarm include mask limit fails, trigger events and buffers full.

The actions that PicoScope can execute include saving a file, playing a sound, executing a program or triggering the signal generator / AWG.
Alarms, coupled with mask limit testing, help to quickly validate signal quality in electronic system designs.

Powerful tools provide endless options

Your PicoScope is provided with many powerful tools to help you acquire and analyze waveforms. While these tools can be used on their own, the real power of PicoScope lies in the way they have been designed to work together.

As an example, the rapid trigger mode allows you to collect 10,000 waveforms in a few milliseconds with minimal dead time between them. Manually searching through these waveforms would be time consuming, so just pick a waveform you are happy with and let the mask tools scan through for you. When done, the measurements will tell you how many have failed and the buffer navigator allows you to hide the good waveforms and just display the problem ones. This video shows you how.

Perhaps instead you want to plot changing duty cycle as a graph? How about outputting a waveform from the AWG and also automatically saving the waveform to disk when a trigger condition is met? With the power of PicoScope the possibilities are almost endless.