SP209 Series User Manual
SP209 / SP209i
Principle of operation
SP209 Series logic analyzers connects to a computer via a USB cable. A free software - called ScanaStu-
dio - is used to configure the device and display captured signals. The software can also be used to
further analyze the captured samples by decoding protocols like I2C, SPI or UART.
Embedded memory vs streaming
USB based logic analyzers (ones that don’t have a display and rely on a computer for that matter)
usually operate according to one of two schemes:
• Using an
embedded memory
to store captured samples. Samples are later downloaded at a
slower speed via the USB interface. This has the advantage of not being limited by USB transfer
rate, but has the disadvantage of limited embedded memory.
•
Streaming
captured samples over the USB connection, at the maximum possible speed. While
this offers the advantage of a virtually unlimited memory (only limited by host computer’s
memory), it has the disadvantage of limiting the sampling rate to USB’s throughput.
SP209 combines the advantages of both streaming and embedded memory techniques. An embedded
2Gb DDR-3 memory stores captured samples at 200 MHz sampling rate on all channels, while a USB
interface compresses and transfers the data simultaneously, effectively emptying the embedded
memory and making more room for new samples. This results is a logic analyzer that can capture
dozens of minutes of logic signals activity on 9 channels at 200 MSPS.
Versatile trigger system
SP209 series offer a state of the art trigger system. It’s composed of two FlexiTrig®trigger engines, each
FlexiTrig engine can be used in one of those modes:
• Edge trigger
• Pulse trigger (with minimum and maximum pulse width)
• Timed logic sequence
• Protocol based trigger (e.g. I2C bus address or serial UART character)
• External trigger source
Furthermore, the two trigger engines (called A and B hereafter) can be cascaded in one of the following
modes:
• A then B (Wait until A triggers then arm B trigger engine)
• B then A
• A and B (Trigger engines A and B must trigger, but in any order)
(c) Ikalogic SAS 2019
