Q. What else is being done to improve users’ experience with instruments?
A. Another important aspect is usability and the user interface. If I am comfortable in using an oscilloscope, it might not be easy for me to use a different instrument, because the user interface, the contrast and the pattern that gets formed might be different. A crucial thing here is that engineers can spend more time on their design, because they don’t have to spend time learning the instrument.
Q. Will instruments like these make sense for start-ups and small design houses running on shoestring budgets?
A. When a design house starts up in Bengaluru, they might have just two or three people to begin with. Later, as the company hires more people and begins to grow, they will need instruments that grow with them. So rather than buying a new expensive instrument, they can simply upgrade their current basic instrument.
Q. For low-power designs, any functionality or features that aim to help?
A. There is a power module that goes into some instruments. It aims to help the users with just that. Engineers who want to improve switching power supply efficiency can use it to measure power loss at the switching device. When working on low-power designs, one has to depend on the power supply that typically moves from linear to switching in order to be power efficient. Power modules like these allow you to look at the rise time and fall time of the switching, and can be used to evaluate various options like topology.
