Bogdanoff, Daniel

There are literally hundreds of different oscilloscope probes available, so how do you choose the right one? There’s no single answer because all designs are different. But, here are some different probe characteristics you’ll want to consider before making a decision.

The movement from analog to digital oscilloscopes has opened up a new world of measurement opportunities for engineers. Using an ADC paired with a plotter instead of a sweep generator paired with a CRT gives you the ability to change how your signal is acquired. To get the most confidence out of your oscilloscope readings, it’s crucial to understand the strengths and weaknesses of different acquisition modes. Learn how normal, averaging, and high resolution modes work and when you should use each one.

In oscilloscopes today, making a good signal measurement is easy. But, making a great measurement takes some expertise. As edge speeds increase and voltages decrease, your signal’s margin of error gets smaller and smaller. So, making a great oscilloscope measurement could mean the difference between meeting and not meeting your design parameters.

Logic analyzers offer two main meth-ods for capturing data, state mode and timing mode. Timing mode (sometimes known as «asynchronous mode») is the sampling methodology shared by both oscilloscopes and logic analyzers.