Patent ID: 7634747

Claim:
A method of trace delay error compensation for use in a test and measurement instrument, comprising the steps of: loading parameters from a design tool used to create a circuit under test into a measurement instrument; acquiring signals from the circuit under test using the measurement instrument at an acquisition location on the circuit under test that is remote from a target circuit location on the circuit under test; and correcting in the test and measurement instrument the acquired signals using the parameters so that the signals are adjusted to represent the signals at the target circuit location; displaying the adjusted signals by the test and measurement instrument to show a correct timing relationship between the signals at the target circuit location; wherein the correcting step comprises the steps of: computing an associated time delay between the acquisition location and the target circuit location, based upon a segment path length and propagation velocity as the parameters, for each of the acquired signals; and adjusting the acquired signals in time according to the associated time delay to compensate for propagation delay between the acquisition location and the target circuit location; determining from the parameters a distortion effect for each segment path length upon the acquired signals; and refining the associated time delay to compensate for the distortion effect on each of the acquired signals.