PicoScope® 6000E Series

Digital triggering architecture

Many digital oscilloscopes still use an analog trigger architecture

based on comparators. This causes time and amplitude errors

that cannot always be calibrated out and often limits the trigger

sensitivity at high bandwidths.

In 1991 Pico pioneered the use of fully digital triggering using the

actual digitized data. This technique reduces trigger errors and

allows our oscilloscopes to trigger on the smallest signals, even

at the full bandwidth. Trigger levels and hysteresis can be set with

high precision and resolution.

Advanced triggers

The PicoScope 6000E Series offers a set of advanced trigger types

including pulse width, runt pulse, windowed, rise/fall time, logic and

dropout.

The digital trigger available during MSO operation allows you to

trigger the scope when any or all of the 16 digital inputs match a

user-defined pattern. You can specify a condition for each channel

individually, or set up a pattern for all channels at once using a

binary value.

You can also use the logic trigger to combine the digital trigger

with an edge or window trigger on any of the analog inputs, for

example to trigger on data values in a clocked parallel bus.

Actions

PicoScope can be programmed to execute actions when certain events occur.

Events that can trigger an action include mask limit fails, trigger events and buffers full.

The actions that PicoScope can execute include:

•

Stop the capture

•

Save waveform to disk

•

Play a sound

•

Trigger signal generator or AWG

•

Run an external application or script

Actions, coupled with mask limit testing, help create a powerful and time-saving waveform monitoring tool. Capture

a known good signal, auto-generate a mask around it and then use the actions to automatically save any waveform

(complete with a time/date stamp) that does not meet specification.