Pico Technology continues to push the limits of USB-powered oscilloscopes. The new PicoScope 3000 Series offers the highest performance available from any USB-powered oscilloscope on the market today.
The PicoScope 3000 Series has the power and performance for many applications, such as design, research, test, education, service and repair.
Pico USB-powered oscilloscopes are also small, light and portable. They easily slip into a laptop bag making them ideal for the engineer on the move. The new PicoScope 3000 series 4-channel oscilloscopes feature FlexiPowerTM, giving you the option of powering the scope from two USB ports, so you can leave the power supply behind when using the device in the field.
High bandwidth, high sampling rate
Unlike most USB-powered oscilloscopes, with real-time sampling rates of only 100 or 200 MS/s, the PicoScope 3000 Series delivers a market-leading 1 GS/s. ETS mode boosts the maximum effective sampling rate further to 10 GS/s, enabling even finer time resolution when used with repetitive signals.
Deep memory
The PicoScope 3000 Series offers memory depths up to 128 million samples, more than any other oscilloscopes in this price range.
Other oscilloscopes have high maximum sampling rates, but without deep memory they cannot sustain these rates on long timebases. The PicoScope 3406B can sample at 1 GS/s at timebases all the way down to 10 ms/div.
Managing all this data calls for some powerful tools, so PicoScope has a maximum zoom factor of 100 million combined with a choice of two zoom methods. There’s a conventional set of zoom controls, plus an overview window that shows you the whole waveform while you zoom and reposition the display by simply dragging with the mouse.
The deep memory can be segmented to store multiple waveforms, and has navigation tools allowing you to review up to 10,000 previous entries. No longer will you see a glitch on the screen only for it to vanish before you stop the scope. A mask can be applied to filter out waveforms of interest.
Advanced triggers
As well as the standard range of triggers found on all oscilloscopes, the PicoScope 3000 Series offers a class-leading set of advanced triggers including pulse width, windowed, dropout and logic triggers to help you capture the data you need.
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Digital triggering
Most digital oscilloscopes sold today still use an analog trigger architecture based on comparators. This can cause time and amplitude errors that cannot always be calibrated out. The use of comparators often limits the trigger sensitivity at high bandwidths and can also create a long trigger “re-arm” delay.
Since 1991 we have been pioneering the use of fully digital triggering using the actual digitized data. This reduces trigger errors and allows our oscilloscopes to trigger on the smallest signals, even at the full bandwidth. Trigger levels and hysteresis can be set with high precision and resolution.
Digital triggering also reduces re-arm delay and this, combined with the segmented memory, allows the triggering and capture of events that happen in rapid sequence. At the fastest timebase you can use rapid triggering to collect 10,000 waveforms in under 20 milliseconds. The mask limit testing function can then scan through these waveforms to highlight any failed waveforms for viewing in the waveform buffer.
Custom probe settings
The custom probes feature allows you to correct for gain, attenuation, offsets and nonlinearities in special probes, or to convert to different units of measurement (such as current, power or temperature). You can save definitions to disk for later use. Definitions for Pico oscilloscope probes and current clamps are built in.
Arbitrary waveform and function generator
All units have a built-in function generator (sine, square, triangle, DC level) with frequency sweeping capability. Combined with the spectrum peak hold option, this makes a powerful tool for testing amplifier and filter responses.
The B models in the PicoScope 3000 Series also include a full arbitrary waveform generator. Waveforms can be created or modified using the built-in AWG editor, imported from oscilloscope traces, or loaded from a spreadsheet.
Spectrum analyzer
With the click of a button you can display a spectrum plot of the selected channels. The spectrum analyzer allows signals up to 200 MHz to be viewed in the frequency domain. A full range of settings gives you control over the number of spectrum bands, window type and display mode: instantaneous, average, or peak-hold.
You can display multiple spectrum views with different channel selections and zoom factors, and place these alongside time-domain views of the same data. A comprehensive set of automatic frequency-domain measurements, including THD, THD N, SNR, SINAD and IMD, can be added to the display.
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