Oscilloscope-based embedded serial analysis

A new embedded serial triggering and analysis module, the DPOEMBD, is now available to convert the Tektronix DPO4000 series oscilloscope family into a powerful tool for embedded system designers

Serial buses present significant challenges for development engineers, but the new module addresses these problems for engineers working with low-speed serial buses such as I2C and SPI.

The bus display on the oscilloscope provides a combined view of the individual signals (clock, data, chip enable etc) on the bus, making it easy to identify where packets begin and end and identifying sub-packet components such as address, data, identifier and CRC.

Serial triggering is possible on packet content such as start of packet, specific addresses, specific data content and unique identifiers.

The oscilloscope will decode each packet on the bus and display the value in either hex or binary form in the bus waveform.

In addition to showing decoded packet data on the bus waveform itself, the module allows the user to view all captured packets in a tabular view in much the same way as a logic analyser.

Packets are listed consecutively with columns for each component (address, data etc).

In addition to providing serial triggering for isolating the event of interest, the new module includes facilities for analysing the captured data.

The DPO4000 series oscilloscope can search through the acquired data for user-defined criteria including serial packet content.

Each occurrence is highlighted by a search mark, and rapid navigation between marks is as simple as pressing the 'prev' and 'next' buttons on the front panel.

The DPOEMBD module for the DPO4000 Series oscilloscopes costs £750 (plus VAT).

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