(1) CWAV Low cost USB pod turns PC into scope, logic analyzer, more eeProductCenter's Alex Mendelsohn says: "Back in 2003 I covered one of CWAV's first products, the USBee ZX Digital Test Pod. Using high-speed USB, the pod provided an assortment of digital test and control functions on a PC.
Like the USBee ZX Digital Test Pod, the USBee AX Test Pod can also function as a wide variety of test equipment. You can use it as an I2C decoder just as easily as a digital voltmeter, or a signal generator." Readers say: » "Like the description says, this might be good for home hobbiests and students but it's still kind of expensive for that market."
» "Very cool."
» "Clever for a whole host of general analytical needs."
» "Cool for low cost, low performance testing."
» "I can't see it being fast enough"
» "It's very helpful."
» "Nice product but lacking on OS support. It needs to support Linux directly."
» "This is quite an interesting device. It is of course limited in its bandwidth, but adds a significant step towards portable scope/logic analyzers"
» "Software should be multi-platform (Linux, MacOSX, etc)"
» "Potentially useful product. Higher bandwidth would make it more attractive."
» "This is great. One inexpensive device will allow me to compete with better financed firms."
» "It is great that we are now seeing less expensive options that allows a computer to take the place of an oscope, function generator and logic analyzer."
» "Should use a better A/D converter, there are much higher resolutions and sampling speeds available. Try 12 bit at 100 MSample/se or better, prices are low."
» "I already use one of USBee products, like it a lot."
» "My work revolves around the linux OS so without a linux driver or the specs to write one, I don't see how I could really use one."
» "Extremely handy for on-site debugging of weird problems."
» "It's compact, portable and looks very convenient to use. Of course, its performance vis-a-vis dedicated instruments need to be verified."
» "Looks like a good product, but need support on Mac OS X. Would also like to see a lower price."
» "A digital scope may not provide what we need for analog circuit analysis. The cost would also have to be reasonable. Easy data acquisition and storage is a definite plus!"
» "I wish I had one. I may buy one for my own personal use."
» "I'd have to actuall play with it to really analyze it."
» "Kinda slow as a scope, but then again you can take it right back to your desk - slick!"
» "Sounds great when you don't want to drag out the full analyzer."
» "Need at least 16 logic channels to be really useful in a wide variety of cases."
» "A great idea if it can truly maintain a low cost." USABILITY RANK: 1
(2) AGILENT TECHNOLOGIES 100-MHz scopes pack mixed-signal punch eeProductCenter's Alex Mendelsohn says: "In addition to scrutinizing a spec sheet, it helps to turn the knobs and push the buttons on a piece of test gear to get a feel for what it can, and cannot, do. That's exactly what I had an opportunity to do with one of Agilent's new 6000 Series scopes. I got my first impression from the front-panel.
For the 6000s, it's clean and relatively easy to decipher and use--and the display is striking. The 6000 Series provide 3-D viewing, using a high definition XGA color LCD. It gives you a crisp 768x1024 screen area, for a 640 vertical-point x 1000 horizontal-point waveform view." Readers say: » "The sample rate and display technologies in this scope are outstanding. In today's world of faster and faster rates this scope would lend itself as a very valuable tool for analyzing these products."
» "This is a great scope for the money. So much more than scopes of 5 years ago. The biggest challenge for this scope is just getting engineers that like Tek scopes to even consider looking at it."
» "Pretty good value for the money in a low end scope."
» "Looks nice."
» "For the MRI research I'm doing, 100 MHz isn't quite enough; the GHz looks more interesting. Just have to find $18k in the budget!"
» "A good product for the price, but is not fast enough for most of my needs."
» "Can always use a good color DSO."
» "Great specs. But the front panel is not as well designed as Tek."
» "Connectivity looks good, display gets good comments, reputation of Agilent..."
» "I would check out other brands before I purchased from Agilent."
» "Sweet."
» "The 4+16 capability is new. The rest is just evolutionary. But I never seem to get access to gear less than 2 orders of mag less than I need"
» "Excellent product, this will be purchesed for my company's R&D dept."
» "I like the mixed analog and digital capabilities. That is a big help with analog embedded systems."
» "Just another O-scope..."
USABILITY RANK: 2
(3) SRI PMD RF modules enable wireless data-acquisition eeProductCenter's Alex Mendelsohn says: "Although not a well-known company, SRI PMD has been providing RF sensor telemetry for test-and-measurement and data-acq applications for quite some time. The company's Wireless Link line of products provide realtime connectivity between sensors or transducers and instrumentation that can be separated by distances of about 500 feet.
" Readers say: » "Interesting product. Might have many uses."
» "Has a lot of possilibities."
» "Great technology..."
» "Would find a good use in industrial-control apps."
» "It is excellent to use, easily any technician can learn and use."
» "Good & useful product. Good Windows support-95-XP. Needs Mac OSX support."
» "Can one be made to operate at 300 to 415mhz?"
» "What about zigbee? Price?"
» "A little pricey but a lot of features. Might have been a decent choice when I was doing wind turbine telemetry."
» "As I do alot of data acquisiton for testing purposes this is very interesting for our company."
» "Nice and compact. Decently powerful microprocessor for its size. Needs Linux support."
» "Excellent for harsh enviornments."
USABILITY RANK: 3
(4) SAELIG Powerful USB protocol analyzer runs on PCs eeProductCenter's Alex Mendelsohn says: "Although the press release from Saelig primarily discusses the latest USB ExplorerPRO Professional Edition bits, it's worth taking a closer look at the USB ExplorerPRO USB (Universal Serial Bus) bus analyzer box, too. It's a small (5.9 x 4.7 x 2.6-in.) and light (less than 2-lb.) package that works with a PC as an analyzer, communicating across USB 2.0's 480-Mbit/s connection. It's also powered from the USB port it's connected to.
" Readers say: » "Expensive"
» "Cool debugging tool for a specific USB application."
» "It will be very helpful."
» "Needs Linux Support"
» "A little expensive, but if I had an assigned project, I would definately consider using this."
» "Extremely useful (necessary) for USB driver development."
» "Interesting but I would like to know its speciality in comparison with competing products. The front panel has a lot of scope for improvement though."
» "Useful product. I'd like to see a USB & Firewire analyzer in the same box. It would need to support Microsoft OS and Apple OS. Or at least run well un virtual PC on the Apple."
» "Might use if lab required something like this for USB cert of a product, but only if they weren't satisfied with less (might be overkill)."
» "Would be nice if it ran on Linux." USABILITY RANK: 4
(5) TEKTRONIX Tektronix spins scope-like 3-in-1 function generators eeProductCenter's Alex Mendelsohn says: "When I sat down recently with Tek's field marketing director to get a hands-on demo of these new arbitrary/function generators, I felt like I was re-visiting the rollout of Tektronix's TDS1000, TDS2000, and TDS3000B Series oscilloscopes. I had to look closely to be sure I wasn't about to test drive a scope. The new AFG3000 Series have big (5.6-in.) menu-display LCDs that look very much like oscilloscope screens.
" Readers say: » "Having a display is a great concept for a AFG. A 4 channel model would be valuable in the medical industry for generating cardiac signals."
» "Very cool new product in and area that hasn't got much attention lately."
» "It's an excellent product for the price and even Tek underestimated its success!"
» "These products are too expensive. I would like to see a programmable high speed Crystal clock replacement, dial in any freq from 0 to 250 MHz, some output impedance control, 5V or 3.3 V out. Make it stable, and accurate to 100 ppm."
» "I wish I had one."
» "Looks good (typical of Tek packaging). But I guess its going to be expensive for SOHO kind of companies."
» "Like the form factor, also feature that allows importing waveforms from scopes, and price/performance - nice!" USABILITY RANK: 5
(6) AUTOMOTIVE ELECTRONICS SERVICES Windows utility helps drive Fluke 190 Scopemeters eeProductCenter's Alex Mendelsohn says: "
AES Setup Shooter from Automotive Electronics Servicesb is software that communicates with popular 190 Series Scopemeter portable oscilloscopes from Fluke. The package supports the Fluke 190B, 190C, 192, 192B, 196, 196B, 199, 199B, 196, 196C and 199C Scopemeters.
" Readers say: » "This looks like it would be useful if you had the scope, I think it should be included as a free accessory."
» "Speed will be an issue."
» "Needs to support Linux"
» "Again, an excellent field-debug tool. Wish I had one."
» "This utility and software provides real time update and played a critical part in resolving field related issues."
» "Very reasonably priced enhancement for scope. The larger PC screen would give more accurate readings. The ability to store setups would be a real time saver."
» "Interesting use of communication technology. As with other products here, it needs Linux support. It should also be available with USB connector, or at least sold with 232 adapter."
» "Would be excellect for repetitive lab work." USABILITY RANK: 6
(7) LECROY Automated test suite serves second-gen PCI Express eeProductCenter's Alex Mendelsohn says: "
Test-and-measurement equipment maker LeCroy Corp is offering what it says is the industry's first automated test suite for PCI Express testing and validation. The company's SDA PCI Express (SDA-PCIE-G2) software works in conjunction with its SDA (Serial Data Analyzers) and PCI Express Protocol Analysis and traffic generation tools." Readers say: » "Good. The UI can be improved a lot (take Tek's UI as a reference). A little too expensive."
» "Appears to be an aesthetically pleasing suite. Not really enough info to assess what it can "really" do." USABILITY RANK: 7
(8) VMETRO Plug-in analyzers graphically probe PCI Express eeProductCenter's Alex Mendelsohn says: "If you're adopting PCI Express v1.1, and (likely) working in a Windows development environment, check out VMETRO's new Vanguard Express family of protocol and link analyzers. Each equipped with 256-Mbytes of trace memory, the ten members of this family of analyzers will support testing of x1, x4 and x8 (number of lanes) PCI Express card-edge and XMC form-factors." Readers say: » "I have had a chance to see some of VMETRO's analyses (particularly the VME based ones) and they are really good. This one adds to it! I wish I had one."
» "Lotta money...better be doing a lot of work in the field on std cards to justify it...is there graphical interface to show where problems are?
» "Seems expensive, but may be worth it if you really need an Analyzer."
» "With PCI Express being the next big protocol for comsumer video cards, this is a significant tool for designers." USABILITY RANK: 9
(9) NATIONAL INSTRUMENTS Realtime PXI instrument controllers run high-speed Intel processors eeProductCenter's Alex Mendelsohn says: "As 3U-sized plug-ins, National Instruments's (NI) new fast RT PXI embedded controllers are the cat's meow for PXI (PCI eXtensions for Instrumentation) systems, as they leverage PXI's enhanced environmental specs, standardized software, and timing and triggering schemesıcatapulting them into the realtime fast lane. Just look at these benchmarks." Readers say: » "Embedded controllers for PXI are definitly the way to go especially with the Real Time support."
» "Has it's place."
» "PXI seems to have become more of NI proprietary standard (though it is really open). I have my own doubts about using PXI+LABView for realtime applications."
» "Test situations ALWAYS can use the latest speed increment, sooner or later."
» "Very cool. A bit pricey and I am apprehensive about claims of determinism with Pentium chips."
USABILITY RANK: 8
(10) NEXTEST SYSTEMS PC-controlled ATE debuts eeProductCenter's Alex Mendelsohn says: "Nextest Systems Corp. is rolling out two new semiconductor ATE systems for cost-sensitive applications. Both were showcased at the 2005 Semicon/Taiwan Exposition. Unfortunately, thereıs scant additional information on these wares, not even on the companyıs Web site,
Let's look at what we do know. Nextest's <i>Magnum EV</i> is a desktop test system. It lets you run and correlate test programs on your desktop without an expensive production system, thereby saving time and money. The Magnum EV is controlled by a 3.4-GHz Pentium 4 PC." Readers say: » "How much does this cost? Does it compete with Teseda?"
» "Need more info."
» "This would definately be worth looking into, but there's not much info available. Also would like to see it run on Mac OSX & Linix."
» "Not enough data to evaluate Can it be used to validate against design databases, if so those in which formats? Can't tell so it isn't something I'd take all that seriously"
» "Not enough info to really make an informed decision."
USABILITY RANK: 10
