Since their invention, oscilloscopes have been the eyes of the designer in the electrical domain. Today's sophisticated digital designs and complex modulation schemes require advanced performance to accurately represent signal behavior - performance that in many cases exceeds the limits of traditional digital storage oscilloscopes (DSOs).
Digital oscilloscopes brought advantages of permanent signal storage and extensive waveform processing when compared with their analog predecessors. However, they have lagged substantially in two key areas: waveform capture rate (live-time) and effective representation of dynamic complex signals. Oscilloscope live-time is a critical element for both detecting infrequent events, such as asynchronous faults in digital systems, and capturing feature-rich dynamic signals.