Improved view

has introduced four 100 MHz portable digital storage and mixed-signal oscilloscopes (DSOs/MSOs) that are said to have the highest performance capabilities in the industry.

With a real-time sample rate of 2 GSa/s on each channel and display update rate up to 40 times faster than competing models, the Agilent 6000 Series can now show critical events in complex waveforms, reducing design verification and debug time.

These additions to the 6000 Series are also said to provide the industry with its first 4+16-channel MSO in the 100 MHz segment. These oscilloscopes feature waveform viewing and measurement insight for 8- and 16-bit embedded system designers in the aerospace/defence, automotive, communications and consumer electronics industries.

Improved waveform viewing is achieved with Agilent’s MegaZoom III display technology. MegaZoom III provides users with real-time, high-resolution XGA waveform viewing with 256 levels of colour-intensity grades and memory depth up to a full 8 Meg points, which is 800 times more than competing models. The dynamic range in the Z-axis provides the highest waveform-display quality of any other portable oscilloscopes on the market today.

Engineers face design problems that are increasingly digital in nature -- more and faster signals, wider time spans and serial triggering. Agilent claims that the portable 6000 series oscilloscopes provide the performance needed to address these measurement challenges. They are optimised for waveform update rates and display resolution, plus have the ability to add 16 logic-timing channels, significantly reducing debugging time.

As the complexity of embedded systems increases, hardware developers often need to isolate events of interest or view critical relationships on more than the limited number of channels available in traditional oscilloscopes. MSOs provide the integration of scope and logic-timing channels for time-aligned viewing and triggering across any or all input channels. Now, for the first time, customers can order either a 2+16 or 4+16 channel MSO for their 100 MHz applications. Those who order a DSO 6000 Series can upgrade to an MSO configuration later.

Additionally, Agilent's FPGA dynamic probe, introduced for Agilent logic analysers in 2004, is fully supported by the MSO versions of the Agilent 6000 oscilloscopes. With the addition of the FPGA dynamic probe, embedded systems developers using Xilinx FPGAs in their hardware digital designs have the ability to see inside their FPGA and correlate this internal view with events on their system with the MSO5's scope and logic channels.

All Agilent 6000 Series oscilloscopes come standard with LAN, GPIB and USB interfaces as well as an additional front-panel USB port to replace limited-capacity floppy drives. The front-panel USB port lets designers easily store memory records, screen images and settings on standard higher-speed, higher-capacity USB memory sticks.