Lost that analogue-scope feeling?

-- EDN, 4/13/2000

With its 54600 series of 100-MHz oscilloscopes, Agilent has developed a combination of features that it believes suits the instruments to mixed-signal applications. You can have two- or four-channel versions, or you can replace a two-channel acquisition module with a logic-analysis module that displays 16 channels time-syn-chronised to the scope traces in a two-plus-16 format. Part of the scope's automatic-setup function is to scan the logic-analyser channels and display only those with activity to minimise display congestion. All the scopes have 2 Mbytes of display memory, providing high horizontal resolution and a wide horizontal-trace-expansion range.

To achieve the display characteristics it wanted, Agilent has returned to a monochrome CRT, which it uses in a vector-display mode for the 'instant-response" behaviour that users associate with traditional analogue scopes and that Agilent finds is still sought-after. The persistence behaviour of the CRT, together with the 5-bit grey-scale signal-intensity representation, helps you spot anomalies in traces that you can then examine in detail with the digital zoom. Triggering options include complex combinations, which can incorporate conditions from the logic-analyser module; video-frame and line triggering; and special modes, such as I²C bus triggering. Overall, Agilent says its objectives with the new series were to combine the benefits of the analogue vector-scope display with those of the digitising systems of the DSO. Sampling rate is 200M samples/sec. Prices range from around $2300 for a basic 60-MHz, two-channel version to approximately $4500 for a 100-MHz, four-channel or two-plus-16 channel model.

Agilent Technologies, +44 1344 366666, www.agilent.com.

-by Graham Prophet