Pico PQ242 (6824E-D4) PC USB FlexRes Oscilloscope - Without Probes

Features and Specifications

• 500 MHz Bandwidth (–3 dB)
• 8-channel, FlexRes (8/10/12 bit)
• Dual 5 GS/s ADCs
• 4 GS capture memory (up to 2 GS per trace)
• ±10 mV to ±20 V full-scale input ranges
• No probes are provided (-D4)

6824E Oscilloscope with FlexRes (Flexible-Resolution)

The Pico 6824E oscilloscope with FlexRes offers flexible resolution, allowing users to adjust the hardware for either optimal sampling rate or resolution. This means the hardware can be set as a fast 8-bit oscilloscope with a 5 GS/s rate for digital signals, or a high-resolution 12-bit oscilloscope for audio and other analog applications.

The FlexRes feature is ideal for capturing and decoding fast digital signals or detecting distortion in sensitive analog signals. The built-in digital signal processing technique in PicoScope 6 can further enhance the scope's effective vertical resolution to 16 bits.

Unlike most digital oscilloscopes that achieve high sampling rates by interleaving multiple 8-bit ADCs, leading to performance degradation due to introduced errors, the FlexRes architecture uses multiple high-resolution ADCs in various time-interleaved and parallel combinations. This optimizes the sampling rate to 5 GS/s at 8 bits, the resolution to 12 bits at 1.25 GS/s, or other combinations in between.

The PicoScope 6824E, which has two banks of four channels each, combined with high signal-to-noise ratio amplifiers and a low noise system architecture, allows FlexRes technology to capture and display signals up to 500 MHz with a high sampling rate, or lower-speed signals with 16 times more resolution than typical 8-bit oscilloscopes.

The PicoScope 6 software provides the option to manually set the resolution or use the auto resolution mode, which applies the optimal resolution for the chosen settings.

PicoScope 6000E Series Oscilloscopes Overview

The PicoScope 6000E Series in nine available models covers both fixed-resolution and FlexRes oscilloscopes, offering a vertical resolution between 8 to 12 bits. These devices are capable of supporting a bandwidth of up to 1 GHz and a sampling rate of 5 GS/s. The models, which come with either four or eight analog channels, are equipped with the necessary timing and amplitude resolution to detect and analyze crucial signal integrity problems, including timing errors, glitches, dropouts, crosstalk, and metastability issues.

Series Features

• Deep-memory, high-performance oscilloscopes and MSOs
• Up to 1 GHz bandwidth
• 8-bit to 12-bit FlexRes ADC
• Supports up to 16 digital MSO channels
• 200 ms capture time at 5 GS/s
• Up to 4 GS capture memory
• 50 MHz, 200 MS/s, 14-bit Arbitrary Waveform and Function Generator (AWG)
• 300,000 waveforms per second update rate
• PicoScope, PicoLog and PicoSDK software included
• 21 serial protocol decoder / analyzers included
• Mask limit testing and user-definable alarms
• High-resolution time-stamping of waveforms
• Over ten million DeepMeasure results per acquisition
• Fully digital triggering using the actual digitized data
• Advanced triggers: edge, window, pulse width, window pulse width, level dropout, window dropout, interval, runt and logic

Best-in-Class Bandwidth, Sampling Rate and Memory Depth

The PicoScope 6000E Series oscilloscopes, equipped with a 500 MHz analog bandwidth and a real-time sampling rate of 5 GS/s, have the capability to exhibit single-shot pulses with a time resolution of 200 ps. These oscilloscopes offer the most extensive capture memory in the market, reaching up to 4 GS, which is a standard feature regardless of the price point. This substantial memory depth enables the device to record waveforms of 200 ms duration at its peak sampling rate of 5 GS/s.

Channel Versus Sampling Rate

In 8-bit mode, the 5 GS/s capability is available on up to two channels at once and 2.5 GS/s sampling is available on up to four channels at once, in the channel combinations shown above. Sampling rates of 1.25 GS/s and lower are available on all eight channels at once. For sampling rates in 10 and 12-bit modes, see the technical specifications.

High-End Features As Standard

With Pico scopes, high-end features such as serial decoding, mask limit testing, advanced math channels, segmented memory, hardware‑based time-stamping and a signal generator are all included in the price. In addition, both the PC software and firmware inside the scope can be updated for free through software downloads.

Ultra-Deep Memory

Capture memories of 2 or 4 gigasamples – many times larger than competing scopes! Deep memory enables the capture of long-duration waveforms at maximum sampling speed. In fact, the PicoScope 6000E Series can capture waveforms 200 ms long with 200 ps resolution. The scope also automatically shares the capture memory between the analog channels and MSO ports you have enabled.

Persistence Mode

PicoScope’s persistence mode options allow you to see old and new data superimposed, making it easy to spot glitches and dropouts and estimate their relative frequency – useful for displaying and interpreting complex analog signals such as video waveforms and amplitude modulated signals. Color-coding and intensity-grading show which areas are stable and which are intermittent. Choose between Analog Intensity, Digital Color and Fast Display modes or create your own custom setup.

FFT Spectrum Analyzer

The spectrum view plots amplitude against frequency and is ideal for finding noise, crosstalk or distortion in signals. The spectrum analyzer in PicoScope is of the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) type that, unlike a traditional swept spectrum analyzer, can display the spectrum of a single, non-repeating waveform. With up to a million points, PicoScope’s FFT has excellent frequency resolution and a low noise floor.

Mixed-Signal Operation

When fitted with optional MSO pods, the PicoScope 6000E Series adds up to 16 high-performance digital channels to up to eight analog channels, enabling you to accurately time-correlate analog and digital channels. Digital channel bandwidth is 500 MHz, equivalent to 1 Gb/s, and the input capacitance of only 3.5 pF minimizes loading on the device under test.

Digital channels, captured from either parallel or multiple serial buses, may be grouped and displayed as a bus, with each bus value displayed in hex, binary or decimal, or as a level (for DAC testing). You can set advanced triggers across the analog and digital channels.

You can also decode serial data on all analog and digital channels simultaneously, giving you up to 24 channels of data – for example, decoding multiple SPI, I²C, CAN bus, LIN bus and FlexRay signals all at the same time.

Custom Probes in PicoScope Oscilloscope Software

The custom probes feature allows you to correct for gain, attenuation, offsets and nonlinearities in probes, sensors or transducers that you connect to the oscilloscope. This could be used to scale the output of a current probe so that it correctly displays amperes.

Intelligent Probe Interface (Probes Coming Soon)

With an intelligent probe interface on channels C to F, the PicoScope 6000E Series will support innovative active probes with a low-profile mechanical design for ease of connectivity and low loading of the device under test.

SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Connection

PicoScope 6000E Series oscilloscopes feature a USB 3.0 connection, providing lightning-fast saving of waveforms while retaining compatibility with older USB standards. PicoSDK supports continuous streaming to the host computer at rates of over 300 MS/s.

PicoSDK - Write Your Own Apps

PicoSDK is a free software development kit that allows you to write your own software and includes drivers for Windows, macOS and Linux. Example code supplied on Pico's GitHub organization page shows how to interface to third-party software packages such as National Instruments LabVIEW and MathWorks MATLAB.

Applications

The 6000E Series of oscilloscopes are perfectly suited for design engineers who are involved in the development of high-performance embedded systems, signal processing, power electronics, mechatronics, and automotive designs. They are also beneficial for researchers and scientists conducting multi-channel high-performance experiments in facilities such as physics laboratories and particle accelerators.

What's in the Box

• PQ242 (6824E-D4) PC USB FlexRes Oscilloscope
• User’s Guide
• 12 V power adaptor, universal input
• Localized IEC mains lead
• USB cable 1.8 m
• Storage/carry case