TABLE OF CONTENTS Instruments based on cathode ray tube storage were the early analogue versions of the storage oscilloscopes. These instruments were justifiable, even with their limited performance as there were no alternatives based on semiconductor memories, A-to-D converters and processors. During the latter part of the 1970s and early 1980s, the unprecedented advances on the semiconductor memories and the data converter ICs provided sufficient design flexibility for the oscilloscope designers to develop processor based storage scopes.
As can be seen in Figure 6.1, the prices of digital storage oscilloscopes (DSOs) generally declined during the period from 1985 to 1994, while analogue scope prices remained steady [1]. For many applications, DSOs now provide all the necessary functionality. Also, DSOs continue to offer the unique capabilities that have contributed to their rapidly increasing popularity. For these reasons and technological advances on semiconductors that justify the DSOs in place of long time popular fast analogue scopes, leading manufacturers such as Tektronix and Hewlett-Packard, etc., have now totally switched over to DSOs.
This chapter is a summary of recent advances on DSO techniques and applications, with a few examples of commercial versions.
Video, data communications, and various modulated waveforms are complex because they contain both relatively low frequency signals and relatively high frequency signals (see Figure 6.2). Users analysing these waveforms have generally preferred an analogue scope because it can capture and display both high and low frequencies simultaneously,...
