MSO-9412 Mixed Signal Oscilloscope

Link Instruments' MSO-9412 Mixed Signal Oscilloscope is a combination digital oscilloscope and a logic analyzer - all in a single easy-use instrument. The MSO-9412 features 1 GSa/s for single shot sampling but an equivalent of 50 GSa/s for repetitive signals. The MSO-9412's MSO provides 16 channels: in total: 4 digital oscilloscope channels and 12 logic analyzer channels. All the channels are synchronized and each can store up to 2 Mpts of waveform. The MSO-9412 has advanced triggering with many useful options - such as: Rising/Falling edge, pulse-width and count, 12-bit Logic, as well as I2C and SPI decoding. This etremely portable scope connects to a laptop or a PC via its USB connection. There is great utility in using an MSO with time-aligned analog and digital inputs displayed on the same screen.  One combinatio instrument is much more powerful than two separate instruments. Get more insight into your circuit designs! Perfect for motion control, automotive and industrial applications where precise phase timing information across multiple channels are important.

MSO-9412: Time-Synchronized Oscilloscope and Logic Analyzer Inputs

All 16 channels are sampled at the same time and displayed together. This is better than using multiple separate instruments because the analog and digital waveforms are acquired with the same sample clock, assuring accurate time correlation between the two. Even through cabling two individual instruments together, samples would not be within 5 ns of each other, and the triggering would not be as tightly coupled as it would be with a single instrument.

The Logic Analyzer display can show individual pulse width and frequency information.

High-Speed Sampling

Fast 1 GSa/s ADCs allow the MSO-9412 to acquire and resolve events as narrow as 1 ns on the DSO channels. The MSO can also simultaneously sample at 500MSa/S (2 ns) across all 16 inputs (4 DSO+12LA). 50 GSa/s (20 pS) sampling resolution is available in RIS (Random Interleave Sampling) mode. On the opposite end of the timebase spectrum, the MSO can sample at 1 Sa/S, which equates to 2,097,152 seconds, over 524 hours, or 24.27 days per acquisition.

The MSO-9412 has an external clock input that is primarily used when doing logic analysis, but is also useful when doing mixed signal analysis or even pure DSO work. With an analog bandwidth of 200 MHz and 50 GSa/s, the MSO-9412 is the new performance leader in its price range. By fully utilizing high-speed USB communications and variable size acquisition buffer, the MSO-9412 can be adjusted to provide fast screen updates and a very responsive analog oscilloscope-like experience.

Deep Acquisition Memory

A vast amount of data can be captured in the large acquisition buffer. The 2 Mpt buffer allows for high-speed samples and captures of long traces. Other instruments with short memory buffers force users to degrade their sample rates and thus lower their bandwidth. For example, if one needed to capture a 100 us event using a 1 GSa/s scope with a 2.5k buffer, they would reduce your sample rate to 40 MSa/s, or at best a bandwidth of 10 MHz!. The MSO-9412 would enable a 100 us event to be sampled at 20 GSa/s.

"The big buffer really saved me. With my last oscilloscope I always had to balance recording time and time per division. With Link's scope I can record at the fast sampling rate and still see the entire event." Bob Mitchell, consultant. (Beta Tester).

QuadVue® Display

There are often many points of interest that are scattered throughout the buffer.

QuadVue® provides four independent timing windows that allow users to view the entire buffer while simultaneously focusing on details, so there is no need to constantly pan and zoom.

Each window can display a unique timebase while showing any or all channels.

For quick analysis, one can superimpose the current data over the mathematically operated and history memory data.

In this example, four timing windows are being displayed: Window 1 shows the entire buffer. Window 2 shows a zoomed in section around the trigger (red cursor) event. Windows 3 and 4 show a unique part of the waveform and are zoomed differently.

Link's Windows-Based Oscilloscope Software Takes Advantage of a Computer's Large Color Screen

Stand-alone oscilloscope display screens represent a compromise at best. Few people would choose a 7" or 9" monitor as the screen for their PC. So why use a small monitor for an oscilloscope? Our software will also work with dual-monitor PCs. Imagine having a 30" wide trace window!

Spectrum Analyzer / FFT

The dual channel FFT has controls for FFT window, FFT type, FFT resolution, frequency range filters, peak hold, and Min/max envelope.

The software also supports averaging, memory, and plot subtraction.  This allows for a whole range of spectral analysis including: frequency response analysis, power supply noise analysis, etc.

FFT data can be saved to disk and exported to other programs such as Excel, Mathcad, etc.

This example shows use of FFT averaging to identify and reduce noise.

XY Oscilloscope Plot

• XY Area  (Lissajous curve)
• Angle
• Radius
• Delta X
• Delta Y

Waveform Measurements

A powerful suite of over 40 measurements is available. The measurements can be performed on incoming waveform, stored waveform or a mathematically processed waveform. The data cursors can be used to define a subset of data to be measured.

SPI Decoding

The MSO-9412 can display and decode SPI bus protocols as well as trigger on them. Up to 3 SPI buses can be decoded simultaneously. SPI decode window.

Decoded SPI data and timing waveform display

I2C Decoding

The MSO-9412 can display and decode I2C serial bus protocols as well as trigger on them. I2C signals can also be viewed as timing waveforms and statelist-style displays.

Simple Operation

• Fast installation
• Quick measurements
• Simple controls make operation intuitive.
• Perform sophisticated operations that cannot be done with a knob-based DSO.
• Save default setups to disk for easy recall at a future date.
• Screen shots can be pasted into documents and annotated in a preferred image-editing program.

Data-Averaging for Increased Accuracy

Trace data can be averaged over many captures to reduce noise and increase accuracy. The average can be saved to memory, logged to disk or reset after a specific number of captures.

Automatic Storage

To save time, waveforms can be automatically datalogged to a PC. Data can be stored after each capture or according to the results of pulse measurements.

PC Speed Does Not Significantly Affect the Performance of Our Instruments

All of the high-speed acquisition is done with the MSO hardware; the speed of a PC is not a factor. The PC is simply used for the display and user interface. If a PC is fast enough and has enough memory to run Windows well, it will also run our products well.

The instrument has high-speed samplers and buffers. It can acquire information at up to 1 GSa/s and stores the data in its own two MegaSample data buffers. When these buffers are full, the data is transferred to the PC.

Software Libraries

The optional DLL library allows users to write custom software to control the instrument. The library works with Visual Studio, LabView and Matlab.

Channel History is Better Than Persistence Mode

The oscilloscope can automatically save and display up to 30 previous captures. Each capture will be color-coded, and the oldest ones will fade away. 

In this shot, the blue trace represents the current capture. The yellow traces are the 30 most recent captures. The older history traces fade to black

Cross Triggering

The MSO-9412 can trigger on a signal in either the digital or analog domain. In the analog domain, triggering can be done using a rising or falling edge. Other analog domain triggering features are pulse width and pulse count.

One of the benefits of pulse width triggering is that it can detect glitches. Digital domain triggering can use either a 12-bit wide digital word or the advanced serial trigger (I2C and SPI bus protocols).