Digital Discovery: Portable USB Logic Analyzer and Digital Pattern Generator
Digital Discovery
Portable USB Logic Analyzer and Digital Pattern Generator
What is the Digital Discovery?
The Digilent Digital Discovery™ is a combined logic analyzer, protocol analyzer, and pattern generator instrument that was created to be the ultimate embedded development companion compatible with a wide variety of digital systems. Digital Discovery was designed to optimize channels, speed, and portability. A small form factor facilitates easy storage and provides a whole suite of advanced features to allow you to debug, visualize, and simulate digital signals for most embedded projects.
Digital Signals Meet Flexibility
Digital signals are prolific in the engineering world making conveniently interpreting and producing digital signals a critical part of the engineers benchtop. Traditional logic analyzers are typically designed for a specific system with set specifications. The Digital Discovery was designed to be the most flexible logic analyzer on the market, able to be reconfigured on the fly at the touch of a button. Test one design with all 32 channels at 3.3 V, then switch to another design requiring the maximum sample rate at the full 800 MS/s and any other logic level between 1.2 V and 3.3 V, all with the same device.
Digital inputs and outputs can be connected to a circuit using simple wire probes or breadboard wires; alternatively, the Digital Discovery High Speed Adapter and impedance-matched probes can be used ensure signal integrity on higher speed signals.
The Digital Discovery is designed for anyone embarking on embedded development; with features and specifications deliberately chosen to maintain a small and portable form factor, withstand use in a variety of environments all powered by our free software, WaveForms.
For a Getting Started Guide, Reference manual and other documentation, view the Support Materials tab.
Features
- 32-channel digital logic analyzer (1.2…3.3V CMOS, 8 channels at 800 MS/s*, 16 channels at 400 MS/s*, and 32 channels at 200 MS/s)
- 11 Built in Interpreters, Custom Interpreters available via scripting
- Protocol Analyzer Featuring Digital Bus Analyzers (SPI, I²C, UART, CAN, AVR)
- 16-channel pattern generator (1.2…3.3 V CMOS, 100 MS/s)
- 16-channel virtual digital I/O including buttons, switches, and LEDs – perfect for logic training applications
- 4-channel programmable power supply of 1.2…3.3 V /100 mA. The same voltage supplies the Logic Analyzer input buffers and the Pattern Generator input/output buffers, for keeping the logic level compatibility with the circuit under test.
- All Inputs and Outputs Programmable
- Selectable Digital IO pulls
- Selectable Drive, Slew, Pull and Frequency
- Logic Level Selectable between 1.2 V and 3.3 V
*Note: to ensure signal integrity on speeds of 200 MS/s and higher, the High Speed Adapter and Logic Probes must be used.
What's Included
- Digital Discovery packaged in a regular-sized project box
- 2x6 flywire assembly
- If required, an additional 2x6 flywire assembly can be purchased separately
- 2x16 flywire assembly
- USB A to Micro-B cable
What is WaveForms?
WaveForms is the free software application for the Analog Discovery Studio and enables use of the available analog and digital instruments. The software has been refined by customer feedback for over 10 years and features a computer and laptop friendly user interface that has the feel of traditional benchtop software. The Analog Discovery Studio communicates with WaveForms via a USB connection to your computer, allowing users to capture, record, analyze, and generate mixed signal and mixed domain waveforms. WaveForms can be downloaded and installed in under 60 seconds and can be tested without hardware using its demo mode feature. In addition to the use of instruments in the application, the WaveForms application has a script editor tool, which allows custom scripting of the instrument in JavaScript. WaveForms is designed to be run on a laptop or desktop computer and is Mac, Windows, and Linux compatible.
The following instruments are available in the WaveForms application for the Analog Discovery Studio:
- Logic Analyzer
- Pattern Generator
- Static I/O
- Protocol Analyzer
- Power Supplies
For even more customization potential, the WaveForms Software Development Kit (SDK) can be used to create custom applications and scripts in Python, C, and additional languages. The Analog Discovery Studio is also compatible with LabVIEW and the Digilent Toolbox for compatibility with MathWorks' MATLAB Data Acquisition Toolbox.
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