Agilent Introduces Eye-Diagram Mask Testing on X-Series Oscilloscopes

By DE Editors

Agilent Technologies has launched eye-diagram mask testing capabilities for the differential Controller Area Network (CAN) serial bus via the DSOX3AUTO CAN/LIN trigger and decode option and the DSOX3MASK mask-test option. The CAN serial bus is used extensively for control and sensor monitoring in automotive applications as well as a broad range of industrial and medical equipment applications.
 
With the new CAN eye-diagram mask test capability in Agilents 3000 X-Series oscilloscopes, engineers now have the ability to perform a composite signal-integrity measurement of their CAN buses in one easy measurement.
 
The CAN eye-diagram test randomly captures and overlays every differential bit of every CAN frame based on a unique clock-recovery algorithm that emulates worst-case CAN receiver hard synchronization,  resynchronization and sampling. The result is a single measurement that provides insight into the overall signal integrity of the CANs physical layer to show worst-case timing and worst-case vertical amplitude variations. Overlaid bits are then continually compared against a six-point polygon-shaped pass/fail mask limit, which is based on CAN physical-layer specifications.

Customers who already own an Agilent 3000 X-Series oscilloscope with the DSOX3AUTO and DSOX3MASK options can upgrade their scopes with the latest firmware to enable CAN eye-diagram mask testing at no charge. Agilent also provides a broad range of specific mask-test files based on differential probing polarity, baud rate and network length. These mask-test files can be downloaded at no charge.

For more information, visit Agilent Technologies.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website.