Oscium, a manufacturer of innovative instrumentation for test and debug, has announced its new product iMSO-104, the first mixed-signal oscilloscope expressly designed for iPod touch, iPhone and iPad.

Through this product, Oscium intends to provide designers with a simple, low cost, and particularly intuitive electronics tool, so that they can concentrate more on the aspects of testing and hardware debugging rather than on the management of the instrument interface. The heart of the iMSO-104 oscilloscope (Oscium follows Apple's philosophy also in the product naming) is represented by a PSoC 3 (Programmable System-on-Chip) series device, manufactured by Cypress Semiconductor.

The main operations performed by the PSoC 3 which is inside the iMSO-104 are the following:

• management of the bidirectional communication between the oscilloscope and the iOS device (iPod touch, iPad, iPhone) through the Apple proprietary dock connector
• processing performed on the analog and digital signals (it is a mixed-signal oscilloscope) avaialble in input

The picture to the opening of this article shows the iMSO-104, equipped with an analog proble and logic harness and connected to an iPad, particularly suitable given the availability of a wide high-resolution color display and for the touch-screen feature, extremely intuitive.

Previously it was said that the instrument is particularly innovative and actually it is true, since it is the first mixed-signal oscilloscope expressly designed for an Apple iOS device. Its dimensions are extremely compact, and it is aimed primarily at students, hobbyists, or even for small maintainers who, with little expense, that can turn a valuable device like the iPad in an electronic diagnostic tool.

With respect to the technical specifications, we have to say that the ocilloscope is charcaterized by a 5 MHz bandwidth, with a 12 Msps sampling rate.
Up to 5 mixed signals can be sampled simultaneously: 1 analog signal, and up to 4 digital signals. The current price of hardware is determined by the manufacturer at 279.99 US dollars, while the corresponding software application (the iMSO) is issued free of charge, and is freely downloadable from Apple's App Store. It is therefore possible, for instance, to test the application before deciding to purchase it.

The following image shows the iMSO-104 oscilloscope connected, this time, to an iPhone 4. It should be noted the compactness of the overall system, and the design extemely clean.

For the hardware design and implementation activities, Oscium's designers were facilitated by the availability of the Expansion Board Kit CY8CKIT-023 developed by Cypress Semiconductor, and specifically designed to achieve a simple and easy interfacing with the iOS series device (iPhone, iPod, and iPad). This is basically a plug-in board of the development kit CY8CKIT-001 for PSoC, which uses Apple's iOS operating system and the associated software development tool (SDK) to create a bidirectional communication interface between the application (available on Apple App Store) and the corresponding hardware accessory connected to the iOS device. The resulting system is shown in the following image:

Cypress Semiconductor also plans to release in the future a complete range of plug-ins boards which will be able to interface to a myriad of electronic sensors and actuators, with applications also in other areas such as audio processing, high precision analog sensors, QVGA graphics, Controller Area Network (CAN) interface, and more.

As indicated by the manufacturer, the oscilloscope is very simple and intuitive to use, controlled by the gestures of the hand. It is possible to download the iMSO application from the Apple App Store and test the interface for free!

The iMSO-104 kit includes an analog probe 1x/10x, a logic probe with 5 flying leads for SMD, and a screwdriver. The system is compatible with all versions of iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad, equipped with the iOS version 3.1.3 or higher, and the software application is currently configured in the following languages: Italian, English, French, German and Spanish.

Sito web Oscium

CY8CKIT-023 PSoC® Expansion Board Kit For iPhone & iPod Accessories