Mid-October 2019
Product Categories
Dear Colleague,

An oscilloscope is one of the most essentail tools for designing, diagnosing, and working with electronics products. Until quite recently, a quality digital oscilloscope was out of reach for many people because of prohibitive costs, and even professionals had limited access to high-spec scopes. While benchtop scopes are now much more affordable, PC-based USB oscilloscopes have distinct advantages in some situations: they are lower-cost, have a smaller learning curve, and can readily be customized and programmed for particular needs. In fact, very fast PC scopes can be MUCH less costly than an equivalent benchtop version. Performance and feature enhancements appear regularly and software upgrades are usually free. Many USB oscilloscopes offer logic analysis and serial decoding capabilities. PC-scopes can also form the basic A/D front-end, incorporated into custom-designed test equipment for OEM data capture.  

Here are a few of the many available USB-connected oscilloscopes, small in size, that offer a wide range of capabilities and specs, and provide cost-effective high-performance at an affordable price.
Alan Lowne, CEO
PicoScope by Pico Technology is the pioneering brand of the PC-based USB oscilloscope genre of test instruments and Pico continue to provide enhanced features in their latest models. 
Ultra-compact range of 8-bit oscilloscopes and mixed-signal oscilloscopes (MSO). The 2000B models offer more memory and bandwidth. All models are USB-powered and have a built-in function generator and AWG.
General-purpose 8-bit oscilloscopes and mixed-signal oscilloscopes (MSO), that combine fast sampling rates with class-leading deep buffer memories. All models have a built-in function generator and AWG.
High-resolution oscilloscopes with 12 to 16-bit resolution. Low noise and distortion provide unmatched signal fidelity. All are USB-powered and some include an AWG. Included are models with differential inputs and IEPE interfaces.
Flexible Resolution Oscilloscopes. Breakthrough ADC technology allows a range of hardware resolutions from 8 to 16 bits. Combines the high sampling rate of the PicoScope 3000 Series with the high resolution of the PicoScope 4000 Series.
The fastest sampling, highest bandwidth, deepest memory and fastest waveform update rate of any USB oscilloscope on the market today.
PicoScope 9000 Series
20 GHz oscilloscopes for analysis of high-speed signals and paths to 10 Gb/s, including eye diagrams, speed and jitter parameters. Options include 2 or 4 channels, 9.5 GHz optical inputs, clock recovery and differential TDR/TDT.
Designed purely for use in automotive applications, the PicoScope 4000 Series is available in both 2 and 4-channel versions, and is compatible with CAN bus, LIN bus and FlexRay standards. Available as an automotive oscilloscope on its own, or as part of an Automotive Diagnostics Kit.
Remarkable PicoScopes:
The PicoScope 4444 is a high-resolution Differential USB Oscilloscope with a very large buffer of 10,000 waveforms, advanced math and filtering features, and incredible digital triggering for a USB oscilloscope. The differential inputs are extremely useful when measuring voltages across components, as both differential probe sides are high-impedance, which reduces the common-mode noise of the measurements. One of the best features of this 4-channel device is that each channel can be outfitted with a different style of probes. Several voltage, current, and adapters are available, from ±50-V non-attenuated voltage probes to 1,000-V CAT III attenuated voltage probes, to 200-/2,000-A AC/DC 150-V CAT II current probes, to 40-A AC/DC 300-V CAT II current probes, and dual/single BNC adapters. On the pricier side for a hobbyist, the PicoScope 4444 can come in under $2,000 or over $3,000, depending on the probe accessories purchased. 





The PicoScope Flexible Resolution 5000 series offers both two-and four-channel scopes and bandwidth choices of 60MHz, 100MHz, and 200MHz with A/D hardware capture of 8-to 16-bit precision. Pico's FlexRes flexible resolution oscilloscopes enable reconfiguration of the scope hardware to increase either the sampling rate or the resolution: choose from configuring the hardware to be a fast (1GS/s. 8-bit oscilloscope for digital signal applications or a high-resolution 16-bit oscilloscope for slower analog signals. With a SuperSpeed USB 3.0 connection, extremely fast waveform saving is possible at a sampling rate of 500MSa/s. What makes this PC-scope stand out is its deep memory size of 256 MSa (8-bit. which enables the capture of long waveforms at maximum sampling speed — more than 500ms long and 1-ns resolution. All PicoScope 5000D models have a useful built-in 14-bit 200-MSa/s AWG signal source. A PicoSDK software development kit allows you to write your own software, and includes drivers for Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac (macOS. , and Linux (including Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone. It also provides example code that shows how to interface to third-party software such as Microsoft Excel, National Instruments LabVIEW, and MathWorks MATLAB.





Notable PC-Oscilloscopes from Other Suppliers:

The MSO-28, made by Link Instruments , is a compact 2-channel, 2GS/s, and 60MHz bandwidth oscilloscope, that includes a time-synchronized 8-lane logic analyzer. The unique setup of the MSO-28 enables the oscilloscope and logic analyzer to be simultaneously sampled and displayed together, ensuring accurate time correlation between the functions. This multi-function device can also trigger on, and decode, SPI or I2C waveforms and includes software features that display FFT analysis and FFT spectrum analysis to 100MHz.  The MSO-28 is also OS-X-and Linux-compatible.  



The CS448 from Cleverscope (NZ) is a quad-channel, 14-bit, and 500-MS/s oscilloscope with the unique benefit of having an extremely high slew rate measuring capability. According to the spec sheet, the CS448 can make measurements on gate drives slewing at up to 1,000 kV/us, and each channel is isolated from each other, and ground, with a 1-kV working voltage per channel. The number of channels can also be extended through optional accessories. At just under $10,000, it's an expensive USB oscilloscope, until you consider the price of desktop models with similar isolation, working voltage, and other capabilities. For those engineers testing high-power systems, industrial machinery, and motor drives, this is invaluable!