'The Ultimate PC Oscilloscope'

The Ultimate Oscilloscopes, Period!

Combining high bandwidth, sampling rate and record length the PicoScope 6000 series will not only outperform the competition, but will save you money at the same time.

High bandwidth and sampling rate

350 MHz (up to 500 MHz with the PicoScope 6404) backed by a real time sampling rate of 5 GS/s, the PicoScope 6000 series will capture the signal with all the detail that you can handle.

Massive buffer memory

These days most digital oscilloscopes have high sampling rates, but many of them let you down with a tiny memory buffer which means that you can only use the maximum sampling rate on a few timebases, others make you pay extra to get memory upgrades adding to the sale price. The massive 1 gigasample (1,000,000,000) record length that comes standard on the PicoScope 6403 ensures complex waveforms can be captured at the full sampling rate on long timebases.

PicoScope 6000 oscilloscopes are supplied with PicoScope 6 oscilloscope software which allows you to use your PicoScope PCO as an oscilloscope, spectrum analyzer and meter. PicoScope 6 is just as easy to use as its predecessor and makes the same efficient use of screen space, but is now even more responsive and has a more modern user interface. New features in the software include draggable axis, improved zoom tools and a waveform replay tool which automatically records the last 10,000 waveforms.

Advanced triggers

As well as the standard range of triggers found on most oscilloscopes, the PicoScope 6000 series has a full complement of advanced triggers as standard to help you capture the data you need.

Advanced triggers include:

Pulse width

Pulses less than/greater than a specified time width can be triggered on.

Window

If a signal moves into or out of a specified window — defined by 2 thresholds — a trigger event can be generated. Optionally, the event can be qualified by pulse width, and other trigger sources.

Dropout

Triggers after a signal stops toggling for a user defined amount of time, can be qualified by other trigger sources

Delay

Once a trigger event has been identified, the unit can be configured to trigger on the nth event and can additionally be delayed by a user defined amount of time.

Logic Level

A range of triggers to identify a user defined logic state or pattern. There are up to 4 logic trigger sources: CHA, CHB, CHC, CHD and AUX I/O.

Arbitrary Waveform Generator

PicoScope 6000 series PCOs feature a built in signal generator output. This can generate standard waveforms from a library of stored waveforms including sine, square, triangle, ramp up, ramp down, sin(x)/x, Gaussian, half sine, white noise and DC level. You can also define your own waveforms using the power of the built in 12 bit, 20 MHz, 200 MS/s arbitrary waveform generator (AWG).

Spectrum Analyzer

With the click of a button, a waveform capture window can be opened to display the spectrum plot of the selected channel. The spectrum analyzer allows signals up to 500 MHz to be viewed in the frequency domain. A full range of settings give you control over the number of spectrum bands, window types and display modes.  Up to 1,000,000 spectrum bins available.

High speed data acquisition

If the 1 gig sample record length isn’t enough, the supplied drivers and Software Development Kit allows users to write their own software or interface to popular third party software packages. The drivers support data streaming functionality, where gap-free continuous data can be streamed via the USB 2.0 port directly to the PC's RAM or hard disk drive at up to 6 MS/s.

Oscilloscope controls

The display area is kept uncluttered to maximize the data views, commonly used controls such as voltage range selection, timebase, memory depth, channel selection are found on the front panels for quick access. More advanced controls and functions are located within the option menu.

Decoding Software

The PicoScope 6000 Series oscilloscopes are recommended for
serial decoding as their deep memory allows them to collect long,
uninterrupted sequences of data. The PicoScope 6403 can collect
many thousands of frames over several seconds into its 1-billion-
sample memory, and can even decode 4 buses simultaneously using
its 4 channels.

PicoScope displays the decoded data in the format of your choice: “in view”, “in window”, or both at once.

The “in view” format shows the decoded data beneath the waveform on a common time axis, with error frames marked in red. You can zoom in on these frames to look for noise or distortion on the waveform.

“In window” format shows a list of the decoded frames, including the data and all flags and identifiers. You can set up filtering conditions to display only the frames you are interested in, search for frames with specified properties, or define a start pattern that the program will wait for before listing the data.

Mask Limit Testing

This feature is specially designed for production and debugging environments. Capture a signal from a known working system, and PicoScope will draw a mask around it with your specified tolerance. Connect the system under test, and PicoScope will highlight any parts of the waveform that fall outside the mask area. The highlighted details persist on the display, allowing the scope to catch intermittent glitches while you work on something else. The measurements window counts the number of failures, and can display other measurements and statistics at the same time.

The numerical and graphical mask editors can be used separately or in combination, allowing you to enter accurate mask specifications and to modify existing masks. You can import and export masks as files.