News - Board and System Test

Portable Logic Analyzers with Deep Memory

24 September 2013 – Agilent Technologies introduced its 16850 Series portable logic analyzers. The instruments offer the industry’s fastest timing capture with deep memory for quickly debugging digital systems. The 16850 Series also offers the industry’s only portable logic analyzer with both single-ended and differential probing options to help designers get their high-speed digital devices to market faster.

“As system speeds increase, our customers need even faster deep memory timing measurements across a large number of input channels, which is exactly what Agilent’s 16850 Series of logic analyzers deliver,” said Jay Alexander, vice president and general manager of Agilent’s Oscilloscope and Protocol Division. “Combining this capability with a wide variety of probing options allows digital system designers the fastest possible debug across a wide range of applications.”

Developers of high-speed digital devices use logic analyzers to accelerate the debug and validation phase of system design. Often, they must trigger measurements on signs of trouble, such as a time-out signal or error flag, when the root cause actually occurred long before the trigger point. The 16850 Series’ high-speed timing capture with deep memory lets the designer look back in time to observe the location of the root cause of failure. The high sample resolution of these instruments makes it possible to differentiate timing problems from functional problems, providing the insight needed to shorten the debug and validation process and bring products to market more quickly.

With 2.5 GHz, 400 ps period timing capture across all input channels, and up to 128-megasample memory depth, the 16850 Series of logic analyzers provide up to 50 percent faster timing capture with deep memory than any other portable logic analyzer on the market, with twice the memory depth.

The Agilent 16850 Series offers a standard state data rate of 700 Mb per second as well as an upgrade option to 1400 Mb per second. Users can choose the desired memory depth, starting with the standard, 2-megasample depth, along with a variety of choices up to the maximum 128-megasample depth. Both state speed and memory depth options can also be upgraded after the initial purchase.

The Agilent 16850 Series also offers a 1.4-GHz trigger sequencer to track high-speed circuits and define very specific conditions to trigger on in an effort to trap errors and drive quickly to the root cause of failure.

The Agilent 16850 Series logic analyzers offer measurement solutions for a wide range of bus and signal types. The FPGA Dynamic Probe application, built into the logic analyzer interface, provides an automated approach for capturing internal Xilinx and Altera FPGA signals with deep memory state capture.

New low-cost probing has been designed for these analyzers, including flying lead and Mictor options. Flying lead probes have single-ended data and differential clock inputs with a variety of accessories for connecting to targets. Existing 90-pin connector probes, used on Agilent modular logic analyzers, are also compatible with these new analyzers, opening up the portable logic analyzer market to differential probing, DDR BGA probing, and DDR slot-interposer probing.

Many designers of embedded systems are using DDR2 and DDR3 memories in their designs. The 16850 Series logic analyzers offers these designers a lower-cost solution for tracing memory address and control buses in state mode capture, allowing for memory-bus decoding and the use of compliance testing and performance analysis tools. The 16850 Series can provide state tracing of address and control buses on systems running up to DDR2 1333 and DDR3 1333 memories.

www.agilent.com/find/16850-series/

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