The PicoScope 3207A and PicoScope 3207B from Saelig Company, Inc. are the first PC oscilloscopes to offer a USB 3.0 interface. The PicoScope 3207A is a 2-channel USB oscilloscope with 250 MHz bandwidth, 1 GS/s sampling rate, 256 Msample buffer memory and a built-in function generator. Features include digital triggering for accurate, stable waveform display, and equivalent-time sampling which boosts the effective sampling rate to 10 GSa/s for repetitive signals. The PicoScope 3207B has 512 Msample buffer memory and an additional 32ksample arbitrary waveform generator with 100 MSa/s update rate. Both scopes obtain their power from the USB port, so there is no need for an external power adapter.
With USB 3.0 ports appearing on most new computers and laptops, these new PC adapters benefit from the much higher data transfer rate - large data streams captures are now much faster. The oscilloscopes are supplied with the PicoScope software for Windows, which turns a PC into a powerful oscilloscope and spectrum analyzer. The software includes many advanced features such as automatic measurements, serial decoding of RS-232/UART, SPI, I2C, CAN, LIN and FlexRay data, and mask limit testing, which are normally only available as expensive add-ons for benchtop oscilloscopes.
