A signal generator is one of a class of electronic devices that generates electrical signals with set properties of amplitude, frequency, and wave shape. These generated signals are used as a stimulus for electronic measurements, typically used in designing, testing, troubleshooting, and repairing electronic or electroacoustic devices, though it often has artistic uses as well.
Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI), also known simply as Analog, is an American multinational semiconductor company specializing in data conversion, signal processing, and power management technology, headquartered in Wilmington, Massachusetts.
Tektronix, Inc., historically widely known as Tek, is an American company best known for manufacturing test and measurement devices such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and video and mobile test protocol equipment.
A dashboard (also called dash, instrument panel (IP), or fascia) is a control panel set within the central console of a vehicle or small aircraft. Usually located directly ahead of the driver (or pilot), it displays instrumentation and controls for the vehicle's operation. An electronic equivalent may be called an electronic instrument cluster, digital instrument panel, digital dash, digital speedometer or digital instrument cluster.
A mixed-signal integrated circuit is any integrated circuit that has both analog circuits and digital circuits on a single semiconductor die. Their usage has grown dramatically with the increased use of cell phones, telecommunications, portable electronics, and automobiles with electronics and digital sensors.
A lock-in amplifier is a type of amplifier that can extract a signal with a known carrier wave from an extremely noisy environment. Depending on the dynamic reserve of the instrument, signals up to a million times smaller than noise components, potentially fairly close by in frequency, can still be reliably detected. It is essentially a homodyne detector followed by low-pass filter that is often adjustable in cut-off frequency and filter order.
In telecommunication, a measuring receiver or measurement receiver is a calibrated laboratory-grade radio receiver designed to measure the characteristics of radio signals. The parameters of such receivers can usually be adjusted over a much wider range of values than is the case with other radio receivers. Their circuitry is optimized for stability and to enable calibration and reproducible results. Some measurement receivers also have especially robust input circuits that can survive brief impulses of more than 1000 V, as they can occur during measurements of radio signals on power lines and other conductors.
SPEA is an Italian company that designs and manufactures Automatic Test Equipment (ATE) for testing MEMS, Sensors, microchips and Printed circuit board.
CircuitLogix is a software electronic circuit simulator which uses PSpice to simulate thousands of electronic devices, models, and circuits. CircuitLogix supports analog, digital, and mixed-signal circuits, and its SPICE simulation gives accurate real-world results. The graphic user interface allows students to quickly and easily draw, modify and combine analog and digital circuit diagrams. CircuitLogix was first launched in 2005, and its popularity has grown quickly since that time. In 2012, it reached the milestone of 250,000 licensed users, and became the first electronics simulation product to have a global installed base of a quarter-million customers in over 100 countries.
An oscilloscope is a type of electronic test instrument that graphically displays varying electrical voltages as a two-dimensional plot of one or more signals as a function of time. The main purposes are to display repetitive or single waveforms on the screen that would otherwise occur too briefly to be perceived by the human eye. The displayed waveform can then be analyzed for properties such as amplitude, frequency, rise time, time interval, distortion, and others. Originally, calculation of these values required manually measuring the waveform against the scales built into the screen of the instrument. Modern digital instruments may calculate and display these properties directly.
Rohde & Schwarz GmbH & Co KG is an international electronics group specializing in the fields of electronic test equipment, broadcast & media, cybersecurity, radiomonitoring and radiolocation, and radiocommunication. The company provides products for the wireless communications, broadcast & media, cybersecurity and electronics industry, aerospace and defense, homeland security and critical infrastructures.
This is a subdivision of the Oscilloscope article, discussing the various types and models of oscilloscopes in greater detail.
The history of the oscilloscope was fundamental to science because an oscilloscope is a device for viewing waveform oscillations, as of electrical voltage or current, in order to measure frequency and other wave characteristics. This was important in developing electromagnetic theory. The first recordings of waveforms were with a galvanometer coupled to a mechanical drawing system dating from the second decade of the 19th century. The modern day digital oscilloscope is a consequence of multiple generations of development of the oscillograph, cathode-ray tubes, analog oscilloscopes, and digital electronics.
An audio analyzer is a test and measurement instrument used to objectively quantify the audio performance of electronic and electro-acoustical devices. Audio quality metrics cover a wide variety of parameters, including level, gain, noise, harmonic and intermodulation distortion, frequency response, relative phase of signals, interchannel crosstalk, and more. In addition, many manufacturers have requirements for behavior and connectivity of audio devices that require specific tests and confirmations.
A digital storage oscilloscope (DSO) is an oscilloscope which stores and analyses the input signal digitally rather than using analog techniques. It is now the most common type of oscilloscope in use because of the advanced trigger, storage, display and measurement features which it typically provides.
Zurich Instruments Ltd. is a privately owned company developing and selling advanced test and measurement instruments equipped with software for dynamic signal analysis. The company is based in Technopark, Zurich, Switzerland, and has international subsidiaries operating in Shanghai and Boston. Its focus is on academic and industrial research and development organizations.
Tektronix vintage analog oscilloscopes technologies and evolution. The company was founded in the mid-1940s to produce oscilloscopes.
Pico Technology is a British manufacturer of high-precision PC-based oscilloscopes and automotive diagnostics equipment, founded in 1991. Their product range includes the PicoScope line of PC-based oscilloscopes, data loggers, automotive equipment, and most recently, handheld USB-based oscilloscopes. Since their inception in 1991, Pico Tech has been researching and developing PC-based oscilloscopes, when the market standard was analogue storage oscilloscopes. Pico Technology is one of two European scope manufacturers, and competes in the low to middle end of the instrumentation market.
PicoScope is computer software for real-time signal acquisition of Pico Technology oscilloscopes. PicoScope is supported on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Debian and Ubuntu platforms. PicoScope is primarily used to view and analyze real-time signals from PicoScope oscilloscopes and data loggers. PicoScope software enables analysis using FFT, a spectrum analyser, voltage-based triggers, and the ability to save/load waveforms to disk. PicoScope is compatible with parallel port oscilloscopes and the newer USB oscilloscopes.
Oscium is an American hardware company that produces portable tools for field techs.
