400-MHz to 2-GHz DSOs offer high-end features for lower prices
By Dan Strassberg, Contributing Technical Editor -- EDN, February 25, 2009
LeCroy has announced a line of 400-MHz- to 2-GHz-bandwidth WaveRunner digital oscilloscopes—the Xi-A Series. The series includes the MXi-A family, whose members perform advanced signal analysis and capture a maximum of 10G samples/sec in 12.5 million points/channel of acquisition memory. You can interleave pairs of channels to capture 25 million-point records. The company also announced the Xi-A VBA vehicle-bus-analyzer family, which it has tailored for debugging new motor-vehicle subsystems’ serial-communication capabilities. A spectrum-analyzer option for all Xi-A models allows debugging in both the frequency and the time domains. All Xi-A units can also accept the company’s plug-in, 36-channel mixed-signal adapter.
The new series incorporates many physical and architectural advancements that first appeared in the manufacturer’s recently introduced WavePro 7 Zi and WaveMaster 8 Zi series. These advancements include X-Stream II hardware architecture with advanced computing and memory resources, which increases acquisition and display speed, especially when manipulating long waveform records; TriggerScan rare-event-capture technology, which facilitates debugging and analysis; and new LXI (local-area-network-extensions-for-instrumentation)-based connectivity and control options for automated-test systems. All Xi-A units feature a large, bright, high-resolution, wide-screen display and a space-efficient footprint.
In addition, all Xi-A models are compatible with the manufacturer’s optional low-speed serial-triggering and decoding packages, which help you to quickly analyze I2C (inter-integrated-circuit), SPI (serial-peripheral-interface), UART (universal-asynchronous-receiver/transmitter), RS-232, CAN (controller-area-network), LIN (local-interconnect-network), and FlexRay protocols. The comprehensive set of easy-to-use analysis tools, including WaveScan advanced search and analysis, WaveStream fast-viewing mode, and LabNotebook for documentation and report generation, aid in understanding and validating designs.
LeCroy ships all Xi-A VBA models with FlexRay TDP (trigger/decode/physical-layer) testing, LIN-bus testing, and a trigger-and-decode capability that decodes CAN serial data into symbolic, application-layer text directly on the oscilloscope display. Prices for the WaveRunner Xi-A series, the WaveRunner MXi-A units, and the VBA units start at $11,810, $12,925, and $19,095, respectively.
