LeCroy MS-250 - 250 Mhz, 18 Channels, 1 Gs/s, 10 Mpts/ch Mixed Signal Oscilloscope Option

MS Series Mixed Signal Oscilloscopes

The MS-250 is ideally suited for embedded controller testing where there is a proliferation of analog signals coincident with digital signals. You can easily debug signals using standard oscilloscope tools such as cursors, measurement parameters, and zooming. Oscilloscopes compatible with the MS-250 feature large, bright color displays to facilitate signal viewing, plus all the connectivity and documentation capabilities needed to quickly record and distribute information.

• Digital Logic Control: Set the logic threshold and hysteresis for each lead bank, choosing from standard logic families or entering a custom setting.
• Digital Group Management: Combine individual digital lines into bus groups to be managed together. Give lines descriptive logical names, regardless of the physical lead number.
• Digital Analysis: Display digital signals as single line traces or collapsed bus traces. Many of the same tools available for analyzing analog signals may be applied to digital signals.
• Digital and Combined Triggering: Choose to set an acquisition trigger on a digital signal pattern or a combination of conditions using both analog and digital signals.

The Ultimate Mixed Signal Oscilloscope

A mixed-signal oscilloscope (MSO) is the ideal tool for the design and debug of today’s embedded systems providing the only way to see analog, digital and serial data signals simultaneously on one instrument as they occur in real-time. Embedded system designers need to view signals into and out of devices such as microcontrollers, DSPs, FPGAs, ADCs, DACs, and transducers while ensuring proper timing and bus traffic.

Unmatched Digital Performance
The MS Series offers unmatched digital performance and is available in two models, the MS-500 and MS-250. Designed to capture long records of the fastest digital signals the MS-500 has a maximum input frequency of 500 MHz, while other MSOs are limited to only 250 MHz. The long memory of 50 Mpts/Ch means that these fast signals can be captured for up to 25 ms at up to 2 GS/s sampling rate. On top of this raw performance, the MS-500 supports up to 36 channels - enough for all the ADDR, DATA, control lines, and serial data busses. This makes it the perfect tool for embedded systems with 16-bit or 32-bit microcontrollers.

The MS-250 is the ideal tool for testing embedded systems with 8-bit microcontrollers or slower digital signals. With 250 MHz max. input frequency, 18 channels, and 10 Mpts/Ch memory the MS-250 is an outstanding value and provides a complete set of tools for embedded system testing.
 
Analog Performance Reimagined
A great MSO must be built on a great oscilloscope and the WaveRunner® MXi and WaveSurfer® MXs are two of the best. With bandwidths from 200 MHz to 2 GHz, sampling rates up to 10 GS/s, 12.5 Mpts/Ch available memory, and a wide range of math, measurement, and triggering capabilities the WaveRunner MXi and WaveSurfer MXs platforms are powerful and versatile. Both models feature a big, bright 10.4" color touch screen for easy viewing of all your analog and digital signals and both are only 6" deep.
 
The Best Serial Data Bus Testing
Monitoring serial data busses is a major part of embedded system design and test. The ability to quickly locate and isolate specific messages on these busses is important for efficient testing. With LeCroy’s unique color-coded overlay for decoded bus data and powerful, flexible conditional triggering, the MS Series captures all important bus traffic in your system and easily shows important data messages from I2C, SPI, UART, RS-232, and LIN busses.

The Complete Mixed Signal Toolset

Analog, Digital and Cross-pattern Triggering
The WaveRunner MXi and WaveSurfer MXs oscilloscopes come with an extensive set of triggering capabilities aimed at capturing a wide range of analog signals. With the MS Series this triggering is enhanced, adding analog/digital cross-pattern trigger, analog/digital event triggering and the capability to select any digital channel as the source for an analog trigger.
 

Set up a simple or complex cross-pattern trigger with any combination of up to 4 analog and 36 digital channels.
Set pattern with a choice of 1, 0, Rising Edge, Falling Edge, Either Edge or Don’t Care conditions.
 

Easy-to-use Measurement Tools
Cursors and measurement parameters are an important part of any oscilloscope. When using the MS Series these tools measure digital channels as well as analog channels.

Cursors read out hexadecimal bus values while parameters make timing measurements on a single digital channel, between two digital channels or even between an analog and a digital channel.

Insight into Your Embedded System

The display of a mixed signal oscilloscope is your view into the analog, digital and serial data signals that drive your embedded system. The big 10.4" color touch screen of the WaveRunner MXi and WaveSurfer MXs simplifies how you use your MSO and makes seeing signal details easier especially when viewing a combination of up to 4 analog and 36 digital channels.

1. Trigger and decode serial data signals such as I2C, SPI, UART, RS-232, and LIN. The decoded data is presented with a unique color-coded overlay for easy identification. Zoom in closer to see even more data as each individual bit is decoded. Built-in search capability will quickly scan for specific messages on the bus.
2. Use cursors to read hexadecimal bus values or make manual timing measurements.
3. Automatic measurement parameters like period, frequency and duty cycle work on digital lines just as they would on oscilloscope channels. Statistics and Histicons provide detailed measurement information.
4. Analog bandwidths from 200 MHz to 2 GHz with sampling rates up to 10 GS/s.
5. Up to 50 Mpts/Ch digital memory provides very long capture times of all your digital signals, with sampling rates up to 2 GS/s.
6. Long oscilloscope memory enables capturing long records of analog signals while maintaining a high sample rate for fast edges.
7. Complete analog/digital cross triggering. Set up a simple or complex pattern using any combination of up to 4 analog and 36 digital channels.
8. Sampling rate of 2 GS/s on digital lines.

 

Serial Data Bus Validation and Debug

Complete I2C, SPI, UART, RS-232, LIN, CAN, and FlexRay™ Serial Triggering
Quickly and easily isolate specific serial data events on your embedded controller for better understanding and faster debug. Set up trigger conditions in binary, hexadecimal (Symbolic for CAN) formats. Use the MS-500 or MS-250 to capture serial data busses, keeping the analog oscilloscope channels open for other uses. Trigger on DATA in specific locations of long I2C EEPROM reads. Get complete control of your debug process and finish faster.
 
Powerful Conditional Data Triggering
Completely isolate specific message events for better understanding and debug. Use a conditional I2C, CAN, FlexRay,™ UART, RS-232, or LIN DATA trigger to select a range of DATA values to trigger on, not just a single DATA value. Oftentimes, I2C utilizes DATA bytes to specify sub-addresses for accessing memory locations in EEPROMs. Conditional DATA trigger allows triggering on a range of DATA bytes that correspond to reads or writes to specific sub-address memory blocks in the EEPROM.

Conditional DATA triggering can also aid in monitoring DATA outputs from sensors, such as analog-to-digital converters, and triggering when DATA is outside a safe operating range. In both cases, verifying proper operation becomes a simple task.
 

Intuitive, Color-coded Decode Overlay
Advanced software algorithms deconstruct the waveform into binary, hex, or ASCII protocol information, then overlay the decoded data on the waveform. Various sections of the protocol are color-coded to make it easy to understand. The decode operation is fast— even with long acquisitions.

Table Summary and Search/Zoom
Turn your oscilloscope into a protocol analyzer with the Table display of protocol information. Customize the table, or export Table data to an Excel file. Touch a message in the table and automatically zoom in for detail. Search for specific address or data values in the acquisition.