A PC BASED LOGIC ANALYZER: DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION

Abstract

With the development of VLSI we see around us more and more modern digital equipment that use complicated VLSI packages. With such widespread proliferation of such equipment there has been a gro-w.ing demand for cheap logic analyzers capable of quick and correct analysis, apart from the conventional equipment for observing waveforms and voltage measuring instru.ments,like CROs and multimeters. A logic analyzer card, based on a PC can economize the cost as PCs are now available almost everywhere. The developed logic analyzer has 8 channels with a maximum internal sampling frequency of 4t1Iz. It has a four level sequential triggering and the trigger can be anywhere in the trace. The PC is used for setting up the instrument using a simple and user friendly environment.. The run time operation of the logic analyzer is independent from he PC. The detailed analysis on the acquired data is then done by the PC. The logic analyzer has three modes of display. Two in the state mode: binary and hexadecimal and one in the timing mode. The former two are used to debug software and the latter to troubleshoot the hardware.