Books on learning how to design oscilloscopes!! - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / projects

author: PauloConstantino
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2017, 09:13:42 am
content: I have been interested in digital oscilloscope design, and I'd like to know where on earth do you go for reference material or books if you want to get started building scopes?Does anyone know of a book or a document or something to get started?Thanks a lot!

author: MosherIV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2017, 10:51:24 am
content: I do not know of any specific book.Have you searched the WEB for "diy oscilloscope", you will find there are lots of people who have tried and succeeded to various degrees.Now a days, with the availability of cheap microprocessors and FPGAs, doing something like 100MHz scope is not that hard.The hardest part is the analogue front end. For that I would suggest studying the analogue front end of old analogue scopes, their schematics are often in the service manuals.

author: Rbastler
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2017, 10:58:31 am
content: Its really not worth desining your own oscilloscope. I did that years ago with vacuum tubes. I dismatled it. It had just a performance that was too bad and occupies too much space. Don't bother building one.Edit: I looked around on the Internet and found some papers and websites and then build the thing.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2017, 11:25:57 am
content: Quote from: PauloConstantino on July 06, 2017, 09:13:42 amWhat research have you done? In what way are the results inadequate?What kind of spec are you aiming for? V or uV, Hz or GHz? Repetitive waveforms or single-shot?Read the old Tektronix and HP service manuals, and look through the HP Journal.

author: capt bullshot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2017, 11:48:49 am
content: There's some quite interesting information in these books regarding vertical amplifiers and input attenuation (analog front end for an DSO):Analog Circuit Design, Edited by Jim WilliamsThe Art and Science of Analog Circuit Design, Edited by Jim WilliamsYou'll find quite a lot of information regarding all aspects of analog oscilloscopes in the good old Tektronix papers (e.g. look for them athttp://w140.com/tekwiki/wiki/Main_Page-> "Concepts Series"If you're looking for details of digital scopes, look for the component level service manual of the TDS520 series, there are many of the concepts of a modern DSO explained. Todays DSOs are just higher integrated (less chips doing the same job)

author: PauloConstantino
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2017, 12:00:24 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on July 06, 2017, 11:25:57 amAre you ok? Take a deep breath mate.

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2017, 02:56:16 pm
content: Quote from: PauloConstantino on July 06, 2017, 09:13:42 amhere your oscilloscope...otoh... you can either search here for rigol/yaigol reverse engineering or "ds1000z fw from scratch" thread, or "microelectronics circuit" or "digital fundamental" or "design with opamp and analog ic" or AoE book may be a good start.. ymmv...

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2017, 03:03:27 pm
content: Quote from: PauloConstantino on July 06, 2017, 09:13:42 amIf you look around, you'll find some good material on the web about analogue front end design for scopes. Don't expect to find much about the digital section. Its too niche, and most of the really clever stuff is proprietary.

author: Conrad Hoffman
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2017, 03:21:10 pm
content: Tatjana built a scope at age 14-http://www.craftsmanshipmuseum.com/vanvark.htm

author: BFX
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2017, 03:22:41 pm
content: You may start herehttp://www.fpga4fun.com/digitalscope.htmlBut better way is to start with fundamental theory around analog scopes.

author: PauloConstantino
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2017, 04:06:29 pm
content: Quote from: coppice on July 06, 2017, 03:03:27 pmVery good point about the proprietary stuff..... Damn!

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2017, 04:10:04 pm
content: Quote from: PauloConstantino on July 06, 2017, 12:00:24 pmFor one example of a good question about scopes, have a look athttps://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/a-possibly-dumb-q-on-digital-oscilloscopes/For illustrations of poor questions, have a look atthisorthat.

author: MosherIV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2017, 05:13:20 pm
content: QuoteIt is really not that hard.It just requires a really fast ADC to capture the analogue signal(s) and then pump the results into a large RAM buffer.To do live display, you have to overlay the RAM buffer onto screen some how. This is usually dome with FPGA interfaced to the RAM and screen.If you do not mind post capture display, then you do not need to do the RAM to screen overlay.This is very much like the USB based scopes.

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2017, 07:45:57 pm
content: Quote from: MosherIV on July 06, 2017, 05:13:20 pmIts fairly easy to build a basic capture and display device (nothing really qualifies as very easy when its running at a billion steps per second or more). Building something approaching a modern scope, even a low end one, means implementing quite a few bells and whistles which take considerable effort to get right.

author: Richard Crowley
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2017, 08:19:10 pm
content: I once interviewed at Tektronix for a job (although I already was in the process of being hired at another high-tech company in the area.) They asked several questions about some rather esoteric circuits and apparently they liked my answers. The interviewer even asked "How do you know so much about these specialized circuits?" I revealed that at my previous job, we had a nice Tek scope (one of the few really nice pieces of gear). I spent many lunchtime hours studying the service manuals as I ate and learned a lot about the relationship between circuit topology, mechanical design and functional usability.

author: SimonR
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2017, 09:15:40 pm
content: Quote from: Rbastler on July 06, 2017, 10:58:31 amI just knew someone would would say don't build one. they didn't ask whether they should build one they asked how to build one.If your motivation is to save money then you won't save money and it will not be anywhere near as good.but if it is to learn about precision analogue electronics then there is probably no better place to look.High bandwidth, ultra low noise etc etc ultra precise analogue front ends are still a bit of a black art. A dying art probably, hence the lack of good information.I'm sorry whoever it was that posted a post-it note diagram but an Arduino with a 1meg resistor just doesn't cut it, that's for hobbyists and hackers.And whoever said its not hard just an ADC with an analogue front end is also wrong. the front end is the most important bit, the bit that nobody knows how to do properly. If you screw up the signal before the ADC you might as well not bother converting it in the first place.I was extremely interested in this thread because I have to design an oscilloscope as well. Not because I want one, I already have 4, but because I have to include some scope like functionality built in to another piece of equipment I am designing.I need to brush up on my analogue electronics because its really rusty.Hopefully some of the other links will prove helpful and I thank everyone for posting them. Its a shame we might have to learn this stuff from old circuits rather than having a good designers guide available.

author: MosherIV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 06, 2017, 09:33:17 pm
content: Excuse me SimonR but now you are insulting me by misquoting me and not taking into account that I have already pointed out that the analogue front end is important.I point you to what I saidQuoteWith regards to what I saidQuoteThat was to point out that theQuoteis not exactly true.The digital side of a scope is just digitising the data and some way to display it.Yes, there are 'features' that are not detailed because they are largely done in software.I know because I have worked on the design and development of test equipment that worked exactly as I have decribed.Getting off my high horse now.....PauloConstantino, one other thing that needs to be looked at is the triggering circuitry. The voltage level and trigger point in memory would most likely have to be done in hardware as well.

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2017, 05:03:43 am
content: Quote from: SimonR on July 06, 2017, 09:15:40 pmis it not an oscilloscope? then what the definition of a DSO then?Quote from: SimonR on July 06, 2017, 09:15:40 pmwhat is it then (in that particular section) required other than mentioned above?Quote from: SimonR on July 06, 2017, 09:15:40 pmlet me give you a clue... to do it properly, you need 10X BW bits of gears that you want to build, for example 10X BW of a network analyzer... good luck.

author: PauloConstantino
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2017, 08:31:06 am
content: Quote from: Richard Crowley on July 06, 2017, 08:19:10 pmVery cool. So the secret is in the service manuals eh?Sometimes I wonder how do engineers really learn?I mean does an MIT engineer leave the university as a top class engineer ready to work for Tektrokix? Or does an MIT engineer have to go through the same learning process as all other universities?I wonder how these engineers learn to build such amazing out of this world scopes and not only scopes but multicore processors and such.Do they have to be very good after leaving university to have a chance of being inside say Intel or Tektronix to develop these scopes and CPU's ?

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2017, 08:40:36 am
content: Quote from: MosherIV on July 06, 2017, 09:33:17 pmOnly the simplest of machines simply digitise into RAM and do everything else in software. To get high waveform update rates even pretty cheap machines use their FPGAs to do quite a lot of stuff. Trying to do those things using moderately priced FPGAs, and without choking on the flood of data, requires considerable thought.

author: PauloConstantino
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2017, 08:42:34 am
content: Quote from: MosherIV on July 06, 2017, 05:13:20 pmThat's brilliant.So a digital scope is basically a super fancy ADC. lol. I'm happy.This is funny because yesterday I was wondering how voltmeters worked and I wanted to figure it out by myself before I googled it. After thinking for a few minutes I gave up because I thought that voltage itself can never be measured, it's all relative. Then I googled it and saw that people were using voltage controlled pulses and pulse generators to count up to a certain number proportional to a voltage. I found it simply amazing. But still there's no way to measure absolute voltage, one always needs to have a common ground. Anyways, diversion and basic stuff but interesting to me.So if I have a real time ADC basically, I have a scope. So for an analog scope then if I have a phosphor screen and a cathode ray I could simply create a sawtooth wave for the ray, and divert it vertically with the amplified measured voltage?Damn, it's actually a simple concept. Only the details are complicated in order to build very good scopes!

author: Karlo_Moharic
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2017, 09:01:27 am
content: Buy something like Siglent or Rigol and reverse engineer it

author: Alex Nikitin
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2017, 09:24:00 am
content: Quote from: PauloConstantino on July 07, 2017, 08:42:34 amYou've missed one important bit - the trigger circuit to synchronize the sawtooth generator with the input signal you want to see.CheersAlexP.S. I've built my first oscilloscope when I was 17 - over forty years ago (and used that scope for good ten years afterwards). I did design all the circuitry for that scope myself from scratch, including a hybrid (FETs+BJTs+Valves) vertical amplifier with about 10Mhz full power BW (and ~30Mhz small signal BW).

author: PauloConstantino
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2017, 09:32:33 am
content: Quote from: Alex Nikitin on July 07, 2017, 09:24:00 amMOSFETS or JFETS?

author: Alex Nikitin
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2017, 09:39:20 am
content: Quote from: PauloConstantino on July 07, 2017, 09:32:33 amJFETs for the amplifier input, however I've used a small signal MOSFET in the trigger circuit, IIRC. The scope could trigger to ~10 MHz too. One feature I had in that scope I still miss on the scopes I use now - a huge DC shift capability with no visible recovery time from clipping, so I could look at the peaks of, say, 20V p-p signal with 10mV/div resolution, by simply shifting the line 10V up or down (as there was no gain switching in the amplifier itself, only input dividers).CheersAlex

author: PauloConstantino
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2017, 10:42:32 am
content: Quote from: Alex Nikitin on July 07, 2017, 09:39:20 amYou seem like a prodigy! Are you an engineer now?

author: Richard Crowley
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2017, 12:39:21 pm
content: Quote from: PauloConstantino on July 07, 2017, 08:31:06 amMy manager (who is a Senior Fellow and inventor of several key technologies use in high-end microprocessors, etc.) told me: "We hire scores of NCGs (New College Grads), virtually all PhDs every year. For the first couple of years they don't contribute anything to the job while they learn how to work in the Real World."

author: coppice
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2017, 12:48:43 pm
content: Quote from: Richard Crowley on July 07, 2017, 12:39:21 pmThis is an idea that lots of people repeat, and I think its garbage. Some people contribute from the day they leave college, while others are a net drain on team productivity for their entire careers. Some people leave college and immediately contribute with ground breaking innovation, while others contribute in more mundane but valuable ways. I contend that, in general, the people who contribute well after a few years contributed quite a lot in their first year out of college.

author: Alex Nikitin
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2017, 01:29:16 pm
content: Quote from: PauloConstantino on July 07, 2017, 10:42:32 amHmm, just checked - my job title says "Senior Electronics Engineer" , so I suppose the answer should be yes.CheersAlex

author: PauloConstantino
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2017, 02:02:34 pm
content: Quote from: Richard Crowley on July 07, 2017, 12:39:21 pmI see so there's that. Gotta have a PHD first. I see. I'm working on thatWhere do you work at the moment?

author: PauloConstantino
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2017, 02:03:54 pm
content: Quote from: Alex Nikitin on July 07, 2017, 01:29:16 pmFantastic. What are you working on at the moment and what company do you work for?

author: Alex Nikitin
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2017, 02:29:20 pm
content: Quote from: PauloConstantino on July 07, 2017, 02:03:54 pmIt is getting completely off topic. And you can easily find the answers on these questions with a bit of an effort. Or do you need a book on learning how to find info about a person ?CheersAlex

author: JanJansen
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2017, 03:03:14 pm
content: The teardown videos are around 40 minutes each.If you know what parts, you can use the datasheets.I,m also intrested in building a super simple scope for audio bandwidth, + a serial decoder for high frequencys, cheap and usefull digital scope that will be.btw : You can skip the oscilloscope books if you builded your own computer.

author: PauloConstantino
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2017, 05:13:02 pm
content: Quote from: JanJansen on July 07, 2017, 03:03:14 pmWhat do you mean by skip the books?

author: MosherIV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2017, 05:26:37 pm
content: QuoteYou can teach yourself lots of stuff by making. Lots of learning from your mistakes.Or you have to do more research into areas when you hit a problem or just do not know how to acheive something.Just another approach to this.

author: JanJansen
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2017, 05:59:36 pm
content: Exact Mosher, i meant you will fix it i,m sure, i thought you would understand, sorry then.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2017, 06:13:26 pm
content: Quote from: MosherIV on July 07, 2017, 05:26:37 pmLearning by making, and learning from your mistakes can beextremelyvaluable. But without the research and understanding you will usually be reinventing wheels.Now accidentally reinventing wheels isn't too bad, but all too often the reinvented wheels are square and fall off when you go around a corner! That's undesirable if other people are expecting reliable circular wheels.

author: PauloConstantino
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2017, 07:39:36 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on July 07, 2017, 06:13:26 pmoh thanks for the genius insight

author: Richard Crowley
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2017, 07:51:13 pm
content: Quote from: PauloConstantino on July 07, 2017, 02:02:34 pmI am one of the few in the department without a PhD.QuoteMy employer has strict rules about citing their name in social media.But the technology that built what is likely the CPU in your computer was developed right here.

author: JacobPilsen
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2017, 07:54:32 pm
content: Quote from: Karlo_Moharic on July 07, 2017, 09:01:27 amhttp://blog.weinigel.se/2016/05/01/sds7102-hacking.html

author: PauloConstantino
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2017, 08:07:42 pm
content: Quote from: Richard Crowley on July 07, 2017, 07:51:13 pmChip fab, chip design, silicon processing, software or what area? Are you trolling us Richard?

author: Richard Crowley
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2017, 08:35:06 pm
content: Quote from: PauloConstantino on July 07, 2017, 08:07:42 pmTechnology DevelopmentWhich includes both basic research into far-out technologies as well as the more practical issues of:Device DevelopmentHow can we make the next generation of transistors faster, smaller, more powerful (able to control more current), etc. When people around here use the word "device" they are almost always talking about transistors.Process DevelopmentWhat kind of processing will it take to produce those devices. What advances (or tricks) of lithography can be employed to make ever smaller (and ever more precise) imaging on the photo-resist. What kinds improvements can we make to layer deposition, or planarization, etching, etc. And even testing, sorting, and packaging. Much of the equipment and procedures used by the rest of the semiconductor industry were developed here on our campus.Other groupsat other sites do things like product architecture: Deciding what new instructions, features, operational modes, etc. customers will want for next-generation products. And then other groups to design the circuits to implement those features, and then other groups to generate the mask layouts to produce those circuits. And yet other groups do Quality Assurance, with life-testing in elevated temperature, humidity, voltage, clock speed ovens. And other groups think up new applications that can take advantage of new CPU features, etc.

author: djnz
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2017, 08:41:04 pm
content: Intel.

author: tautech
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2017, 08:53:21 pm
content: Quote from: djnz on July 07, 2017, 08:41:04 pmMaybe, they do have a presence in Oregon:https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/location/usa.html

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2017, 09:01:04 pm
content: first with a badly formed question, and then personality chasing game, and then trolling in circle, this can go on and on to hundreds of pages... again, the rightful answer is... if someone has the delusion that it has to be easy, then it (in fact everything) has to come from this...

author: djnz
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: July 07, 2017, 09:10:08 pm
content: I think, and as is evident from the replies, asking here about designing a modern oscilloscope from scratch is not likely to be very fruitful - you will get very superficial replies. What could be more interesting is if OP picks an area and really gets in into the details - say the trigger system, its evolution over history and the clever things that manufacturers did. I'd love to know more about these things.

author: JanJansen
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2017, 02:00:15 pm
content: Wheels can only be round else it is no wheel,people tell me that every day that wheels can be square also, what about triangle wheels ?

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2017, 02:18:04 pm
content: Quote from: JanJansen on July 08, 2017, 02:00:15 pmDepends on what you mean by a wheel. Google for "non-round wheel"! First result isEverybody in the UK has some non-round wheels in their pockets: the 20p and 50p coins.QuoteReleaux triangles, for example. Found googling for "non-round wheels"

author: Rerouter
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2017, 02:34:28 pm
content: I would again say dig up the old reference manuals, different brands went in to detail in areas that the others skipped. they are out there for free download, and the basics has not changed much since then,Ideally you want to keep the input impedance of the device as flat as possible over the measuring range, to remove the need for post processing, this involves designing RLC compensation networks, ideally with as low an input capacitance as feasible if you want to look at higher frequencies, this can get much harder to design, as parasitics come in to play here,Next you need to amplify and attenuate the signal, to get your range switching, and allowing for DC bias offsets for position, there are a few ways to approach this.Finally you pass your signal to your ADC buffered by your amplifier and you need to sample 5 or so times faster than your signal frequency to recover that signal (nyquist) meaning you generally need an FPGA just to move the data around at that speed,And finally you will need a triggering system, either in the FPGA or in analog hardware to sync the adc readings to the screen position, allowing an offset term for horizontal position,The hardware cost to play with is quite low for under 100Mhz, as there are so many reference designs out there for analog front ends, even from a number of daves tear-downs, people on the forum reverse engineered a few of them. the ADC is generally under $100 if you want similar performance in single quantities,You will still need to be familiar with high speed analog and digital, but its still in the ballpark of what you can get test equipment to verify against.Its the software that is a real killer. here math will help, but beyond the absolute basics, it gets ugly.

author: NorthGuy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 08, 2017, 04:50:22 pm
content: It is a huge difference in design depending on the specs.If you want 1GHz (I don't think you can go above 1GHz), you can use pre-made ICs for your front-end. You biggest concern will be PCB design, ensuring signal integrity, possibly matching trace lengths etc. You'll need an expensive ADC with 2-5Gs/s rate which start from $300. You'll also need a relatively fast FPGA ($50+) and most likely 6+ layer board.If you want 1MHz (it won't be practical below 1MHz), you won't need much of a front-end. You don't need a special ADC, and you can use built-in ADC in your MCU. You will need a relatively fast MCU to acquire the signal. This all can be easily breadboarded or turned into a DIY kit.These are totally, completely different projects.And anything in between ....

author: daybyter
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2017, 01:56:42 am
content: http://www.stm32duino.com/viewtopic.php?t=107Start reading here.

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2017, 04:34:37 am
content: Quote from: daybyter on July 09, 2017, 01:56:42 amnow i dont have to write the whole book..

author: JPortici
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2017, 11:15:52 am
content: there is also a webinar somewhere that uses the F7 discovery board with screen and turns it into an oscilloscope, so it covers the basics on acquisition, data handling, screens and visualization.I think the best approach here is to go by steps.. depending on your area of expertise or what you already have at hand.For example, I am sure many of us have made """oscilloscopes""" during work, i certainly have, at least twice by now.We wanted to implement data logging, and then live data logging visualization to our products (one thing they're doing is monitoring a bunch of sensors inside a car).We already do a monitor and have bars and needles on a graph, so logging was easy. At each new data acquisition do not only move the needles around, but save all the variables with a timestamp on an external file. This is our memory buffer.The, while with most of the sensors the bar or the gauge needle was adequate, for others (in our case, the oxygen sensor) we wanted to see the changing waveform over time so i implemented in software an oscilloscope in "roll mode"This apparently simple task, given the very low samplerate (less than 20 Sps) and the apparently high perforance of a modern computer, wasn't really straightforward in order to achieve a good result. A lot was learned in terms on how to write efficient code on a computer and with limited tools (VB6. If i did it in .net it would have been a nightmare)And this was only for raw data visualization, without actually doing anything with the data. In our case hardware is simple given the voltage ranges and samplerate, the low samplerate for visualization was only due to the low speed and high latency of UART -> USB converters (just to put an emphasis on the problem that is moving the data from the acquisition unit to the display unit)One of my future projects is to make a portable calibrator that will also have an oscilloscope (Audio rate) and I guess my point is that i agree with whoever will tell you that the best thing to do is not to ask a generic question. There are many non trivial blocks that make an oscilloscope, best thing is to have a general idea but then focus on one. Then you can always improveIt has already been said that things change A LOT with bandwidth and with memory depth. You can use modern MCUs to make an almost single chip solution if you keep samplerate and memory low.a dspic GS will have 5 12 bit ADCs at 3.75 MSps each, with 11.8 ENOB if memory serves me right (i can confirm from my projects with this part that there is very little noise and good accuracy in the ADC)..then the problem with this chip is memory (some kylobites) and visualization because you don't have an external bus interface and you have to improvise with DMA on gpios.a pic32MZ will have up to 7 12 bit ADCs, at 3.125 MSps each. hardware bugs on interleaved mode (here called turbo mode) so you can't really use all of them to increase the samplerate (but still, many high speed independent channels available) In this case you may be able to do everything with one chip and sufficient performance (i wonder how long will it take to make a small DSO with the MZ DA series? DDR and display controller on board)then ST F1 are used for the simple 20€ scopes by jyetech (have a look at his work! he aims to make simple scope for beginners/students, also to teach how to make them)F3, F4, F7 are more like the microchip parts above in terms of performance and peripherals.And of course all manufacturers do chips like these in one way or another, i just listed the ones i know betterFor my future calibrator project i want to use an LPC 54000 part from NXP, dual core with shared memory, the M0+ core for interface and data visualization and the M4 for acquisition and data handlingthen at some point if you want to increase the bandwidth you will have to mess with FPGAs, high performance DSPs and possibly a whole operating system, of which i have ZERO expertise. It would be foolish for me to tackle such a project aloneSo in the end i suggest you start small with a realistic project and then scale up, ask questions to the point, like how is smarter trigger tahn rising/falling edge implemented, how do i intensity grade etc.at some point you'll have to do everything from scratch.. because of the analog part, because of the digital part, or both.

author: JanJansen
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2017, 12:24:16 pm
content: Quote from: JPortici on July 09, 2017, 11:15:52 amNice start, audio rate, good practice, that is what i wanto do also with some DSPIC.Keeping things simple with the internal ADC.Quote from: JPortici on July 09, 2017, 11:15:52 amYou mean they cant be sampled together at the same timeframe ?I also have a obvious hint :You can draw only 1 pixel, and remove the old pixel for that line very fast.

author: JPortici
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 09, 2017, 12:55:40 pm
content: interleaved means the you can't combine them to achieve an higher samplerate (just like how high speed ADCs work, multiple ADC cores which clock is at dippherent phases. Your common 1 GHz ADC in low cost scopes is actually four cores running at 250 MHz, each clock is 90° out of phase)actually scratch that, interleaved is not available on dspics! but you still have 5 high speed channels to work withbut of course, all the cores can be used at the same time with different channels.

author: Lukas
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2017, 11:32:22 am
content: Wondering why no one mentioned HP Journals yet:http://www.hpl.hp.com/hpjournal/pdfs/IssuePDFs/hpjindex.htmlEspecially the ones from the late 80s and 90s are a treasure trove on digital oscilloscopes.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2017, 12:14:36 pm
content: Quote from: Lukas on July 10, 2017, 11:32:22 amI did way back in message 5, but the OP hasn't shown any inclination to follow up the suggestion. I'll leave you to wonder why.https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/books-on-learning-how-to-design-oscilloscopes!!/msg1249814/#msg1249814

author: schmitt trigger
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 10, 2017, 03:26:47 pm
content: Quote from: PauloConstantino on July 07, 2017, 08:31:06 amI once read an oral story of a renowned Analog designer....can't remember his name, a British gentlemen with a wonderful accent that worked for years at National Semi, which once mentioned that the essential trait is to have a thorough understanding of science: mathematics and physics of course, but also chemistry.If you have that knowledge, are curios about how things work, and are determined to find a solution no matter how many times you fail, eventually you'll figure out a solution and gain significant knowledge which will later help you design more circuits.