News and New Products

Portable MSO line for embedded design features $4300, 100-MHz-bandwidth, four-analog-/16-digital-channel unit

By Dan Strassberg, Contributing Technical Editor -- EDN, 11/18/2008

Tektronix’s new MSO2000 MSO (mixed-signal-oscilloscope) and DPO2000 DPO (digital-phosphor-oscilloscope) series offer tools to simplify debugging of mixed-signal designs. These tools include Wave Inspector search-and-navigation capabilities, automatic decoding of serial data buses, and FilterVu variable-lowpass filters to reduce unwanted noise superimposed on signals. With bandwidths as great as 200 MHz, the new series complement the MSO4000, DPO4000, and DPO3000 families to provide advanced features for engineers who work on embedded-system designs. Such designs have in recent years replaced parallel buses with serial-data buses, such as I²C (inter-integrated circuit), SPI (serial-peripheral interface), RS-232, CAN (controller-area network) and LIN (local-interconnect network).

On a serial bus, one signal can combine address, control, data, and clock information, and that complexity presents significant debugging challenges. The entry-level MSO2000 and DPO2000 series address these problems with integrated serial-data-triggering, protocol-decoding, and analysis capabilities. The MSO2000 also time-correlates as many as four analog and 16 digital signals.

The MSO2000 and DPO2000 series each comprise three models that have two or four 100- or 200-MHz-bandwidth analog channels. Other features include the company’s familiar front-panel layout; serial triggering; protocol decoding; USB (Universal Serial Bus) plug-and-play connectivity; a bright, 7-in. wide-screen display; and a three-year warranty. All models capture 1 million-point records on each channel and acquire 1G sample/sec on all analog channels, ensuring that all signals within the analog bandwidth undergo sampling at least five times per cycle. To aid discovery of elusive transients, all MSO2000- and DPO2000-series units capture 5000 analog waveforms/sec.

The new FilterVu variable-lowpass filter blocks unwanted noise without reducing the bandwidth of the signals you are investigating. According to Tektronix, the two series are the only oscilloscopes that simultaneously display the filtered waveform and high-frequency details that contain frequencies as high as the scope’s full analog bandwidth. On all analog and digital channels, the MSO2000 and DPO2000 series include the Wave Inspector search engine, a set of easy-to-use tools that makes short work of finding events of interest in long records. Wave Inspector can also automatically search through an acquisition, mark all occurrences of a user-specified event, and then navigate effortlessly among the marks.

All models include a USB-host port on the front panel and a USB-device port on the rear. The front USB port supports a flash drive. The rear port is compatible with the test-and-measurement version of USB, which enables communication and control through a PC. The rear port is also PictBridge-certified for printing to PictBridge-certified printers. US list prices range from $2580 to $5150. MSO models include a P6316 digital probe. The 100-MHz-bandwidth, four-channel MSO2014 costs $4300 and is the only 100-MHz MSO with four analog and 16 digital channels selling for less than $5000 in the United States, according to the company. All MSO2000 and DPO2000 units come with a limited but upgradable version of LabView SignalExpress Tektronix Edition.