ALIENTEK DS100 Mini Oscilloscope review with a FPGA dev board. - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / testgear

author: spadger
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: December 09, 2020, 02:09:35 am
content: https://youtu.be/Par6rZX5u9YThe DS100 has a nominal analog bandwidth of 50M and a nominal maximum sampling rate of 250M. The HARDWARE uses MXT2088 overclocking to 125M, and then double interleave to achieve this sampling rate.MCU uses GD32F450VET6, overclocking 25% to 250M, and uses internal 128kB SRAM to achieve 128K point storage depth. For digital storage oscilloscope, storage depth is as important as bandwidth and sampling rate. From the test results, in addition to a few small bugs in the low-frequency rolling mode, the overall performance is still good, basically play the level of hardware. The firmware is still under development. The math channel and FFT will be added later, and the existing bugs in the firmware will be fixed. Maybe the device can become a reliable testing tool in the future.

author: ResistorRob
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: December 09, 2020, 04:00:23 am
content: Review not in English. Sounded like someone reading a Chinese food menu to meSorry I only know about 50 Mandarin Chinese words. Kind of misleading to post this on an English language forum and write a post in English then hit us with a Chinese review.

author: tunk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 09, 2020, 08:30:18 pm
content: Very irritating that an uploaded video has an english title when they don't speak english.

author: jebem
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: August 18, 2025, 04:36:06 pm
content: It seems that Alientek is becoming a well respected brand, although almost unknown on Western countries.As a side note, I bough their DM40C multimeter featuring a extensive set of features. It is a quality product and like it very much.Concerning this DS100 oscilloscope, little "press" coverage exists.Product manufacturer website:https://en.alientek.com/Product_Details/46.htmlFrom the advertised specs and price, the DS100 seems to be an average oscilloscope like many others.However it has some Math operations like Add, Subtract, Multiply, Divide, Abs, and FFT, although the later is very basic as usual on these low cost devices.If only it could do Trigger Holdoff to be able to show a stable AM modulated signal, but it just feature the basic set for trigger.That said, it seems to have a very nice look and good build quality (like my DM40C does), and a comprehensive user guide (in English).The most recent Firmware update was probably released on 3-June-2025 (as seen on the time stamp for the fw file)..Couldn't find a Firmware history log.Teardown and analysis:Chinese forums contains published pictures and videos showing the internals, some member even analysed the circuit design, namely this one:https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/349548481I have been searching and collect information on the used chips.Honestly I can not find a FPGA inside this equipment, but I might be wrong.There are at least two PCB assembly revisions: DSO100_V2.1 and DSO100_V2.5This is what I have so far:GigaDeviceGD32F450VET6: master control, up to 200MHz, Flash 512K, RAM 256K.Winbond25Q128: 128Mbit capacity, used to store waveform images, displayed through USB virtual U disk.Beijing Times Minxin TechnologyMXT2088: dual-channel 8bitADC sampling rate 100MSPS, domestic alternative to AD9288 chip. It is overclocked to 125MHz, two channels cross sampling can reach a sampling rate of 250M, may be unstable.TLP172GM: TOSHIBA optocoupler relay, used to control DC coupling and AC coupling switching.HFD4/3-S: double-pole double-throw solid-state signal relay, used to control signal attenuation.HC4051: eight-choose-one analog switch. One per channel.HC4053: three-way two-choose-one analog switch.3.5-inchDisplay, resolution is 480*320.

author: coromonadalix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 18, 2025, 04:53:42 pm
content: no need to have an fpga .. if everything in this pup is overclocked, in the long run, you surely have stability issues ?sure an cpu core / fpga would add costs .... they go the cheapest ways, even the storage length is very poor

author: BillyGo
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: August 18, 2025, 05:56:57 pm
content: I think they were a manufacturer of cheap mcu dev kits.After making enough money from highschool students, they started making those basic test equipment.By the way their logic analyser is another blood sucke of sigrok's branch.

author: danno_cj
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: August 18, 2025, 07:30:05 pm
content: The cheapest (100 USD) portable oscilloscope with real FPGA and good amount of memory (2Mpts) is DSTouch DS4T252. All others oscilloscopes at this price range are based on MCU and tiny KB memory.

author: tatel
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: August 19, 2025, 12:54:07 pm
content: Well, at least this Alientek DS100 has basic math. So one can do a pseudo-differential measurement. I'm not aware of any other toyscope able to do that. However I don't like so much overclocking. I think 20 MHz BW would be enough.Probably that DSTouch DS4T252 could be worth having, but after skimping through DSTouch user manual I have not seen anything about basic math. Waveform inversion alone wouldn't be enough, right?

author: Aldo22
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: August 19, 2025, 03:24:21 pm
content: Quote from: tatel on August 19, 2025, 12:54:07 pmZeeweii DSO2512G can do it through the app.OK, that's a bit unfair...