Hardware redesign enhances oscilloscope capabilities

The oscilloscopes have been developed to meet the advanced needs of today’s designs, particularly in the mechatronics and automotive sectors. Integrating the latest in touchscreen operation, solid-state storage and high-speed signal processing, they enhance productivity by providing “clean” noise-free signals, extensive processing, and ease of operation.

“Where other oscilloscope manufacturers emphasise increased bit resolution and bandwidth at the expense of precision and signal fidelity in the final measurement application, Yokogawa concentrates on meeting the real-world needs of engineers in the automotive and mechatronics sectors”, says Terry Marrinan, Vice President Europe, ASEAN & Oceania, for Yokogawa’s Test & Measurement Business Unit: “As power devices are increasingly switching faster and with higher voltages, capturing and analysing waveforms reliably with detail and precision requires better noise performance from the measuring instrument. With the DLM3000 Yokogawa - well known for its leading power analyser technology and years of experience with oscilloscopes - has again improved its measurement performance to achieve higher precision.”

The new instrument has a bandwidth of up to 500MHz and a high sampling rate of 2.5 GS/s, making it ideally suited to precision waveform analysis in measurements on fast switching signals in inverter drives, for example.

The high sample rate is combined with an onboard memory capacity of 250 megapoints and an increased voltage range, leading to lower residual noise and increased sensitivity. The DLM3000 also incorporates a variety of real-time lowpass filters to ensure the fidelity of captured signals.

The combination of the interactive touchscreen interface with a traditional oscilloscope control panel allows users to seamlessly transition between the two modes of operation, while a variety of communication and storage options make it easy to access large data sets.

In the multi-channel mixed-signal capability of the DLM3000 series, four channels of analogue input signals are converted to 8-bit logic, so that the instrument functions as a 3-channel analogue oscilloscope combined with an 8-bit logic analyser.

As a result, up to 11 input signals can be observed simultaneously as three channels of analogue signals and an 8-bit logic input.

This means that the instrument can be used not only for the observation of data and control signals or as a trigger source, but also for the logic input analysis of I2C, SPI or other serial buses, removing the limitations imposed by the four channels of a standard oscilloscope in applications where the functioning of multi-channel digital control circuits needs to be examined.

The channel count and memory depth options combined with optional power math and serial bus features - including major automotive buses - result in an oscilloscope that can be configured for a variety of needs.

The memory capacity of up to 500Mpoints allows the instrument to maintain its high sample rate in long-term measurements.

A zoom and search function allows the user to select and display two zoomed waveforms with different time axis scales at the same time, searching captured waveforms in the long memory and displaying waveforms that meet a wide of range of search criteria in the zoom area.

The powerful history memory function automatically saves up to 100,000 previously captured waveforms in the acquisition memory and subsequently displays just one or all of them on screen. The user can then perform cursor measurement, computation, and other operations on history waveforms, allowing rarely occurring abnormal signals to be analysed.