How to Characterize Embedded Serial Buses
Analyzing embedded serial buses with an oscilloscope
Analyzing serial buses in embedded designs requires using an oscilloscope with serial protocol analysis and either deeper memory or segmented memory acquisition. This helps ensure that you can capture analog and digital waveforms over a longer time span and that you can capture more packets. An oscilloscope with segmented memory acquisition enables you to digitize only the important portions of the waveform under test at a high sample rate.
During this test, the segmented acquisition mode on the oscilloscope is turned on. This allows the oscilloscope to ignore unimportant idle time between packets and instead, optimize the number of serial packets captured consecutively or select packets with just a particular ID or address. You can then scroll through the frames to identify any anomalies. Use time-tagging to make latency timing measurements between the frames. Additionally, a time-interleaved lister can display two serial buses and correlate data transfers with other mixed-signal interactions in your system.
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