500 MHz 8b 2GS/s oscilloscope

[petar]

Hi folks.
My name is Petar (that would be Peter if I were Englishman).
I am former air force pilot.
I am also electronic engineer.

About eight years ago I finished designing of a PCI data acquisition card.
It took me almost 3 years, but I designed everything from the starch including PCI bridge (scatter-gather DMA…), SDRAM controller, I2C, SPI, oscilloscope core and many others in VHDL. I was using Spartan2. The card was two channel oscilloscope and arbitrary waveform generator. Analog front bandwidth was about 200 MHz but was slow 50 MS/s 12b ADC and 100 MS/s 12b DAC. It is blazing fast and one has opinion that it is analog scope. I wanted to make a firm, but circumstances made me to give up (waiting for a better time… maybe newer).
Time elapse and I was doing lot of things… ASICs design in verilog…, DSP in FPGA (virtex, virtex2,4,5,6,7)… (software defined radio, spectrum analyzers…). I was the first one that used new National GHz ADCs (long time ago) and had a very bad experience with National engineers and find the bug for them...
Everything that I was doing with a collaboration with “big” firms makes me to believe that there is a few people that really knows their job and a mass of engineers that worth nothing (regardless of their engineering degree). Almost always they put the finger on me and told that I don’t know…. and after tons of argues and lot of time the truth came to the surface and I was right… There is a lot of firm that I designed parts of their chips… or parts of IPs… Of course they don’t know me (they know men that I was working for, and all of them hide me from direct contact with actual customers)…
I know PCB, RF, FPGA, ASIC, DSP. For many fields I am expert and for many I am good at, but not the expert. One would say that isn’t possible, but one is wrong.
Forgive me if I am boring.

Let’s talk about my current steps.
I am designing oscilloscope that would have two channels, 500 MHz bandwidth, 2GS/s 8 bit ADC per channel, 250 MS per channel memory depth, analog or digital or external trigger, normal oscilloscope offsets controls, 400V DC+AC protection at inputs, two analog output channels with 250 MS/s 14b DACs, 20 digital inputs. Because I couldn’t find cheap enough and small display I decided to make an oscilloscope like “picoscope” but not the PC based. It would have VGA out for normal PC monitor and PS2 for mouse.
It will be blazing fast because I decided not to use windows or linux for the job but to generate the picture direct from FPGA and to monitor the mouse (that is only thing that I currently don’t have FPGA IP prepared but I made calculation and strategy for the job… and sized one of the FPGAs for the task according to my calculation). It will have also USB2 slave port (I made a USB with cypress chips long time ago and I got about 26 MB/s to and from PC).
I finished the RF simulations of analog front end and schematic.
Currently I am designing layout.

My desire is to establish a firm.

I am poor man from “west” perspective, so I have only enough money to make couple of oscilloscopes.
I know where the money “lives” (in bank) and where I could borrow it, but I don’t want to do that because those that have money want all for them…
I am asking if it would be possible all of us that’s want that scope to make an “organization” or some “community” that will collect money in advance and make a chip oscilloscope that cost at least 4 times less then when you buy it from Tektronix or other “big” firms.
Believe me or not some parts that all us buying from Digikey can cost twelve (or higher) times less when ordered in large quantity direct from suppliers and that’s exactly the most priced parts. Of course I can make couple of scope before that and somehow presents to community…

I am asking all of you, when I finished the scope what would make you believe me.

My previous life only tough me that bombs drops on my head from “west” and I personally think that what I want is utopian, but why knows maybe human kind will be better and could recognize the truth.

PS. One of my colleague has firm at US and when he begin to establish the firm when pricing product (software) started from about 600 $ and had a few of customers and have been told that if the price would be about 1000 $ that would have more customers. When he rise the price to 1000 $ he couldn’t help himself from lot of customers. The software that he developed was the same… But no one believed that it worth anything when price was low. How men are weird.

Thanks,

[EEVblog]

Believe me or not some parts that all us buying from Digikey can cost twelve (or higher) times less when ordered in large quantity direct from suppliers and that’s exactly the most priced parts. Of course I can make couple of scope before that and somehow presents to community…

FYI
Digikey also sell medium to large qty at fairly close to the manufacturers direct price. And you can get "DigiReels", to order just the required number, so no wastage.

Dave.

[EEVblog]

I am asking if it would be possible all of us that’s want that scope to make an “organization” or some “community” that will collect money in advance and make a chip oscilloscope that cost at least 4 times less then when you buy it from Tektronix or other “big” firms.

It's called KickStarter
www.kickstarter.com
You have to be US based though.

Dave.

[petar]

Hi Dave,
Believe me or not. I am in collaboration with some big firm and I don’t want to name it because of some reason…
12 times is true.
I am not talking about resistor or capacitors…

Thanks,
Petar

[petar]

Dave,

Thanks for the link.
It is good and valuable.
I read it couple of minutes and find that what I am doing is slightly different.
It says: Creators aren’t expected to develop their project without necessary funds, and it allows anyone to test concepts without risk.
But I spend entire decade of my spare time to collect knowledge and make IP necessary for the project and I don’t want others to fund the developing I already did it.

Thanks,
Petar

[EEVblog]

Hi Dave,
Believe me or not. I am in collaboration with some big firm and I don’t want to name it because of some reason…
12 times is true.
I am not talking about resistor or capacitors…

Neither am I.
Look at say the single reel prices for most semiconductors from both Digikey and direct from the manufacturers and you'll find the Digkey prices match almost precisely. So if you can get the parts cheaper then they are likely form the gray market, or you have a special deal with some semi maker that usually only the big guys get when buying 100,000 units or something.

Dave.

[mikeselectricstuff]

It does depend a lot on the manufacturer, but if you're buying full reels, and can live with some leadtime, other franchised distributors are often cheaper than Digikey, but rarely more than a few tens of percent lower.   
There are some oddities, e.g. FPGAs whch can easily be half the Digikey price once you talk to a specialist distributor, even as low as 100x

[petar]

Here are some picture of my previous card I was talking about:

[petar]

The relays that could be seen on analog portion are very small 6mm reed contactors and I used omron relays with it magnetic field to activate the contactor underneath it.

We both know that semiconductor worth nothing. That is the sand, that each river carry a lot of…
We “all” think that some multi billion transistor processor worth let’s say 20$ in production, no that’s the lie. It worth nothing.
Someone would say it is true why you don’t make it and…
But I am certain if one from “poor” country would make such a thing, the guys from west would kill him, or kill entire country whichever is easier to do.
I am also certain that engineers that did all the jobs are less than 1% of the price we are paying for the product.

I saw that you say that: “If someone from China wants to copy your product you could do nothing”. Bad China… No, we are all humans we are all same. China is under total west control. All that is “steal” from the west is under direct control of the west people, so lets say this way: “If one from your neighborhood wants to steel something from you than he goes to China to make it there…”

In human history there is no single event where someone that has power to kill, and knows that he would win the war waits until other side becomes stronger than him. Every time when someone is shore that he would win the war was inevitable. Why USA don’t attack China (the only answer would be: China is under total control.)

[aluck]

Petar, take a look at those guys: http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/about_us.html

[Spiro]

So, what to you want to say with this story? Do you want to create open
hardware scope but you want that nobody to copy you design? You want
to earn your first 1M$? I know. You want to ruin all big names as revenge!!!
Hahahahahah... tragic. 

[kaz911]

Petar - I have quite a lot of experience on "the other side" as either investor or mentor for start-up companies. If you need any hints I'll be happy to help. I have considered setting up a "Crowd sourcing" platform for B2B products (Where Kickstarter is more a B2C oriented platform)

Unfortunately products directed at the EE market are not easy to get finance for because a lot of Business Angles and Investors does not understand the products. And then many Engineers are not versed in business planning - so their budgets are "full of holes" so the investors get scared away.

And everything is more expensive than one thinks. When you design products and build from scratch - a normal rule of thumb is that if you product cost $100 to manufacture - the selling price should be at least $300-$400 to sustain the rest of the "company". Many companies archive that by having a range of models like for scopes - where you earn a little on the small units - but a lot on the high end units - so average return on each item sold is 3 - 4 times production cost.

But that is based on a distribution network - with own sales/support & R&D.

[NiHaoMike]

Better update the board to PCI-E or USB 3.0 before trying to "sell" it, you won't get much demand for something that only works in some old server boards.

[petar]

I saw lot of double crosses in my engineering career.
What I have leaned from my previous life is that humans generally doesn’t recognized real value.
Talking about investors, once a firm from west that had a nice idea for cell phones earn money from “venture capital” and doing lot of designing until was time for investor to see first results, but they didn’t know the job and they didn’t got anything working to show. That firm engage my current west firm that I working for, and we made almost finished product based on Altera FPGA for them in about 3 months. They had what they want and had a presentation for investors on time, and they of course didn’t tell investors that someone else did the job for them. Of course they gain lot of more money from investors and wanted to make an ASIC for the job. We can design ASICs, but they left us and engage another firm to do ASIC for their job.

This tells the fact that actual investors didn’t have any knowledge and that he was blind…

I don’t see the difference between that investor and all of you.

My question was clear, do each single one of you guys believe me or not and what single man can do to others that others starts believe him that he telling the truth?

I don’t want to start open hardware at this time.
I would certainly like to ruin big names, they are only big in our minds and they makes our lives worst.
If the price of hardware would be so small then no body would have a need to make a DIY and open things…

That are the pictures of my previous card, current one would be stand alone (not PC based).

Please all of you forgive me for my bad English, I know I make mistakes all the time, but I am certain that you understand me and that’s what is important.

[EEVblog]

My question was clear, do each single one of you guys believe me or not and what single man can do to others that others starts believe him that he telling the truth?

From your first post, I'd have to say no, it was just talk, like countless people have done before.
But you have posted photos of some excellent looking hardware, so I'm sure most people would believe you are most capable of doing this now, at least on the hardware side.

I don’t want to start open hardware at this time.

Well, that might be a problem.
Outside of a KickStarter type project, I think realistically it's not going to be easy to convince people to invest in your project, because for starters this hardware will not be cheap in small to medium volume.

The way these things usually work is that you produce a prototype of your final hardware first, and make it look as good as possible and as close to the final product as possible. Then you show it off publicly and maybe take pre-orders to get seed money that way for a first batch.
That's basically how kickstarter works too, but you don't have to use Kickstarter, you can just have your own website and a PayPal button.
But really, you need the final hardware to show off, because no one is going to invest and then wait 12 months for you to get something out the door, they need something tangible to lust after. That means you need to show the final (or close to it) hardware working, measuring signals, and some characterisation of it's performance etc.

Dave.

[EEVblog]

BTW, this Australian company are doing something similar:
http://www.screenscopetraces.com/index.html
but not in the same performance category.

Dave.

[BravoV]

I'm interested, what is the approx cost for this cool 2 ch 500 Mhz scope ? $100 ? $1000 ? or else ? At least you can give us the ballpark number as a good start since you claimed this will crushed big companies like Agilent, LeCroy and Tektronix right ?

Oh yeah, btw, which country you're currently living at ? Anywhere near or in Nigeria ? Honestly, this is just a random pick since you never give us any clue about your self nor any details about the scope.

I'm really sorry as English is not my native language too, I'm asking this because the current details I've collected from this thread are only some faint infos that you were a fighter pilot, an EE, some board pics and your political view on China vs Western world, correct me if I'm wrong.

[gregariz]

As Dave more or less alluded to.. I think you are going to have to finish the product first.

If you cant afford to finish it you could set up something like a kickstarter or your own website. Nothing to lose and it need not be an open source project. Otherwise you could try to bootstrap yourself by selling a few at a time until you have the cash for higher volumes.

Just from personal experience I think you should have a close look at what design decisions you make. Doing everything from scratch yourself in an FPGA may seem impressive from an engineering standpoint but usually in a commercial environment it means that development time is excessively long and the FPGA sizes you will require are going to be somewhat expensive. For example, do you have any idea what the cost differential is between developing the VGA interface versus simply using the PC display? Is it worth the effort in time and money? Who are your customers? how will you sell to them and what do you think they will pay?

Finally I know that anyone who has spent more than about 5 years in an engineering role becomes extremely cynical (and for good reason) but there is no grand conspiracy on this board to somehow stop you from doing your project. No-one is interested in your politics. Good luck.

[robrenz]

Big companies have to pay their engineers, salesmen, and administration etc..  Yes they make lots of money but they also have to spend a lot.  If you charged $35.00 an hour for ALL the time and expenses you have invested in this so far and the additional hours and $ to get it to a sellable product and had 100 units made in Taiwan your scope would probably cost more that a Tek or Agilent equivalent.  And who is going to pay you for the tech support and warranty service?

I understand a labor of love as many of my personal projects are just that. I don't get compensated for the countless hours I spend developing a product and I don't expect to.  My pay is the enjoyment of the creative process. 

IMO your thoughts that you can produce and support a competitive scope in small quantities for substantially less than the big guys is unrealistic.

[petar]

BravoV,

Why are you so upset about all the details you want to know?
Do you own those "big" companies or work for?

I didn't tell that I will crushed big companies like Agilent, LeCroy and Tektronix.
I told that I would certainly like to do it.
That's big difference.
I just don't have power to do it. My customers will be my power and any honest man on the planet will be my power.

I am European. I speak English and Je parle Francaise. I have two university degrees. I am white like snow. My mother was Croat and my father is Serb. I am from country where once live Nikola Tesla, have you heard anything about him?

First of all I am designing the oscilloscope for myself (because I personally believe to myself and have no fear of double crossing myself) and I know that I couldn't buy such a quality and features for the price of single unit BOM at Digikey. I will finished my scope and no single person in the world have to by it (I would certainly like that people buy it, but I will not kill myself if nobody want it). I love electronic, that is the reason of doing all that I do. The second reason is that I know that my work is state of the art and I want to have state of the art equipment in my lab (not just a scope and not just a single one).

Second, I had that PCI card long before let say picoscope establish itself as a firm and I see that picoscope is now considered as respected firm and I see myself still as a poor man (relative poor).
Long time ago I search picoscope site for the information on input analog offset adjustment range, and I had been searching it almost 3 hours. I couldn't believe my eyes that picoscope don't have offset adjustement...

On the other hand I hate managers that ruin the product performance just by using low quality parts and the quality drops let say many time for a couple of $. Also Chinese oscilloscopes are low signal quality and full of bugs (at least what I saw).

As I am working with such a equipment every day one couldn't believe how many bags have equipment that cost let say 20k$. Shame, blame, "big companies", all garbage.

Price of oscilloscope is a function of BOM (in my case) and it depends lot of on quantity.
Schematic is optimal for good results and there is no single chip that isn't necessary.
I will see (ASAP) on quantity of one what would be the cost of BOM at Digikey (it is certainly not 100$).

Can you tell me what is the price of 500 MHz oscilloscope, 2GS/s per channel, and 250 MS per channel memory depth? (100 $ or what?)

Thanks,
Petar

Gregariz, you are right and many of my colleagues told me the same thing, but if I use some processor and all the stuff around it SDRAM....., and of course must pay if I use windows... to display... than it would cost me almost about 100$ per scope, and I already have FPGA for the job. Certainly your approach would be faster development time. Oscilloscope screen isn't movie (it is big darkness-nothing  and very few something) when I compress that big nothing it is so little (few MB) of data....
The compression wouldn't been MPEG2, no, it would be "my" compression which is so simple... again, it is not film nor picture of some nude woman. Only thing I need to do is just one time to decompress and resize the picture (to adjust to  monitor size) and to change so few pixels on the fly while oscilloscope works.
And all of that would cost me about 100k gates and few DSP48 (oh mistake few multipliers) in Spartan3AN and extern SDRAM.

Thank you all I appreciates your suggestion.

[petar]

Hello Robrenz,

I agree with you, lot of hungry in the chain…
But when speaking of support… when equipment works no support needed at all.
When equipment doesn’t work like expected there is no single minute of good support from “big guys”. Support engineers don’t know anything that isn’t in datasheet (which you as a customer ought to read).

Where is mine support from National semiconductors (is it “big” enough firm), where is from Xilinx, where is from Texas instruments. All that I got from “big” firm was garbage. I was doing state of the art (edge of the technology) not for me of course and all of them only made me idiot… Of course after few months and tons of stupid emails… they all ask me to forgive them and that they are wrong. But what do firm that I work for have from their apologize (nothing, firm that I work for lose lot of money because of the “support”).
Support is myth. You think that you will have support for couple of k$. Only support that lets say Indian engineer read the data sheet instead of you. (and say with Indian accent: “Hello sir, how may I help you”.)

But at the other hand when I made Wishbone to PLB and vice versa bridge and integrate it into Xilinx EDK to be simple like few mouse clicks… They are ask me at the New year day that they have important customer that have a problem with my core. I couldn’t believe my eyes, engineer in the big firm (ASIC designer) don’t know concept of partial decoding. I made a decoder just for him for few minutes and change the core just for him.
The core works just fine according the data sheet that I wrote but the core didn’t do address decoding (it is a bridge not a device that has its address range) but not for the “big” firm engineer.

Thanks,
Petar

[BravoV]

Hey Petar, I'm not upset at all, really,  thats why I asked more details since your goal of making this thread is this below quoted text of yours right ?

I am asking if it would be possible all of us that’s want that scope to make an “organization” or some “community” that will collect money in advance and make a chip oscilloscope that cost at least 4 times less then when you buy it from Tektronix or other “big” firms.

I find its amazing that you're expecting people will gather money for you to start your firm in building the scope with all this posts of yours. Now, instead of lengthy rambling and story telling about your life and your political view which no one interested, why not you do the exact thing that you said you're going to do (read the words in bold below)

Believe me or not some parts that all us buying from Digikey can cost twelve (or higher) times less when ordered in large quantity direct from suppliers and that’s exactly the most priced parts. Of course I can make couple of scope before that and somehow presents to community…

Are you sure you're not from Nigeria ?

[petar]

Thank you, BravoV.

I think people are smart enough to conclude causality.

I am actually doing that, but this is not one day job, give me a time, I am not asking you money right now and expecting you to wait couple of years for it.

Actually, I see that right now I am loosing my time with you and there is better to concentrate on my work.

Petar

>>Are you sure you're not from Nigeria ?


Thank you again.

[EEVblog]

Petar, IMO the only thing that will help sell your scope is analog bandwidth.
That it what traditionally costs money in a scope, and continues to do so.
If you can genuinely do a high performance 500MHz bandwidth scope for a low price, then people will be interested.
Other than that, there would have to some gimmick to rise above the pack, as there are so many USB based scopes on the market, and now companies like Rigol are trying to advance the low end scope market with their new DS2000 series.
And 500MHz probes aren't cheap, they could cost the same as your board...

Also, the devil is in the usability details. If you use a VGA/HDMI output and expect people to use a monitor to use the scope, how do you expect them to interact with it?
Using a mouse seems obvious, but then that's an extra monitor and mouse people have to have on their bench. Many might rightly ask the question, why bother? when I have my notebook/tablet available? In which case why not make it a traditional USB scope?
Do you know how much work is involved in developing a good user interface for a scope?
What about all the fancy stuff people expect these days like serial decoding, masking, fft etc?
That stuff gets easier if you chose a PC as the interface platform, and you could possibly open source the software so people can improve upon it. That's much harder to do if you are doing everything in an FPGA with direct VGA out.

IMO there is room to innovate here in form factor, like for example making it an oscilloscope "backpack" for a tablet perhaps? With real knobs and buttons on the sides perhaps?

Just some food for thought.

Dave.

[petar]

Hi Dave,

Of course the analog BW is what counts…
I could do lets say many GHz BW and let say 20GS/s AD conversion, but for the first scope I don’t want to do that because I can’t do protection circuit (nobody on the planet can at least with current technology) when using inputs 50 ohm to be save to for my users because I expect them to plug input directly to mains which is here in Europe 220Vef.
I am certainly shore that people don’t believe me that I can do 500MHz and what would happen if I claim let say 6 GHz?
If I make few GHz oscilloscope some day it will cost much, not because of BOM but because of user abuse (If something has low cost that users would behave ugly and I don’t want to repair it each time user put input direct to mains…). It needs to cost much that’s how user will think twice before do something foolish.

My previous project is a working oscilloscope. I am not a software expert but I know C and LabView and lot of stuff of windows kernel.

Look at the user interface that I did almost 9 years ago just for me to evaluate performance of my card (I haven’t spent a minute to make it looks good for a customer…).

I already have USB 2.0 IP software and hardware ready for USB – PC based oscilloscope but I don’t want do this way.

One reason is because this way the actual performance depends on PC (I know guy that has 3 windows installed at the same time and 30 programs opened at the same time and never shut down it – always using sleep mode and complain that something don’t work. When use (abuse) it this way it has no chance to work fine and of course he need “support” all the time…).

I could do it (user interface) so easy in Labview or CVI or Measurement studio but this way I have to pay to National instruments for using their software…

I prefer to do traditional benchtop oscilloscope but there is no cheap let say 10” or 12” TFT display on the market (to integrate it with the rest) and it is weird but 20” display is so cheap.

Be shore that I know what I talking about, please believe me that I am qualified.
I know that sound impossible for one man to know and do all the stuff… I know.

Maybe I made a short video on how my previous card work it is a blazing, believe me it a good stuff. I have a camera with just 30 seconds record 640*480….

Thank you for your comments, don’t think I don’t appreciate it if I didn’t comment some of thoughts.

PS. I was thinking of adding voice recognition to be user interface. It could be boring because one have to “teach” the scope commands before using it… From a hardware point of view it is an easy task… From a DSP not so easy, time partitioning, triggering… cross colerration and searching, filtering… Just my thoughts… Mouse is a still an easy solution.

Petar

PS. At the photo (I am learning from you, so photo not a picture, right?) it could be seen flyback DC/DC wave signal on channel1 and output generated by the card itself (DAC) on the channel2.

[EEVblog]

Be shore that I know what I talking about, please believe me that I am qualified.
I know that sound impossible for one man to know and do all the stuff… I know.

It shouldn't matter whether anyone believes you or not, the only person who is going to do this project is you.
There is no need to get anyone's approval or endorsement, just do it!

Believe me, if you produce such a thing a lot of people will be interested, but until then you are just yet another person who wants to make their own oscilloscope.
But it would be wise to get people's input on things, like possible price, features, interface, form factor etc, and this forum a great place to ask for feedback as the design progresses.

Dave.

[Bored@Work]

I still have not understood what you want from "us" - the forum readers.

As a general remark, to successfully address potential business partners and potential development partners, you might want to work on the way you pitch the project to them. Growing some thicker skin might also help.

[petar]

>>Believe me, if you produce such a thing a lot of people will be interested, but until then you are just yet another person who wants to make their own oscilloscope.
>>But it would be wise to get people's input on things, like possible price, features, interface, form factor etc, and this forum a great place to ask for feedback as the design progresses.

Exactly as you say.
I am going to work (it is hard...).

[petar]

I calculated BOM price for those interested.
These are single unit DigiKey prices excluding taxes

Semiconductors and connectors 907$   All parts excluding resistors and caps exact value
Resistors and capacitors             100$   I didn’t calculate it but there are lot of them…
Box       aluminum                        27$
PCB 8 layers                               100$   That’s my thought it will be very complicated…
Box   CNC  routing                       10$ 
USPS                                             40$  United States Postal service
                            BOM   SUM  1184$ 
                                 TAX  20%  237$
                                  TOTAL   1420$

So 1420$ would be the single unit price for BOM and all excluding assembling.

I expected that can be cut to half for lets say 1000 units…
And there are many DC/DCs so if I made one larger DC/DC with multiple outputs by myself then it could saved a lot, but for the first prototype I don’t want to do such optimization.

Petar, 

[0xdeadbeef]

Just my 2cents: analog bandwidth and high sample rate are not everything for a good scope. The user interface, measurement/analysis options and customer support are also important - at least in an industrial environment.

E.g. at work, we have some scopes from the Agilent 7000A line and some LeCroy WaveRunners. They are approximately the same price range (10k€ to 14k€) and have similar technical specs: 4GSa/s, 500 to 600MHz bandwidth, the Agilents have 8MSa memory and the LeCroys have 12MSa up to 32MSa memory depth.
Now still, there's no way the Agilents can compete with the LeCroys for more sophisticated jobs. If you need high precision period measurements, advanced statistics, multi stage triggers, jitter analysis or anything that is beyond the simplest of measurements, the Agilent just can't do it. You can't even buy it as an option, where you could easily spend another few k€ for helpful addons on the LeCroy. It's hard to estimate how much time and money went into all this advanced functionality.
E.g. did you ever try the WaveScan feature on a LeCroy?

Honestly: in the industry, it doesn't really matter so much if a scope costs 5k€ or 10k€, especially if the 10k€ scope helps you to find issues earlier.

So while I'd kinda trust you that you are able to design the hardware part of a modern scope that is comparable  to a state of the art device from the big names, I have my doubts that you can really deliver the same quality regarding GUI and measurement/analysis features. Especially if you want to do it all from the FPGA. There's a reason why the scopes with complex GUI and features use a full OS (Windows most of the times) with all its drawbacks.

[tom66]

If you are targeting hobbyists then I see no reason you'd need to go above 100 MHz or even 50 MHz. A sample rate of at least 5x per channel, and preferably a way to combine two ADCs into two channels to get 1 GS/s for one channel. Like Rigol do.

Even most average electronics stays below 200 MHz. High speed FPGAs and CPUs - sure they could be at 300 or 500 or more MHz, but if you can afford to play with them, you can probably afford to buy a 500 MHz scope .

Make a nice UI, add a few bells and whistles (like a 16 channel logic port) and if you can produce it at a decent price, you'd have a winner.

[petar]

Yes my targets are amateurs and my thoughts is that more and more people will use FPGAs especially if they could afford scope which is currently beyond of their $ capability.

It is hard to beat Chinese, no way to be cheaper than them in 50-200 MHz range.
I personally think that their scopes are crap, but for that money you just can’t be better.

Each price range has its buyer you just need to have better price performance ratio.

I will certainly add all of fancy things that people think it is hard to do (that includes SPI, I2C and other serial bus decoding, FFT, pp measurements, averaging, frequency, adding, subtracting, glitch finding, signal frequency sudden changing position, rise time sudden change position and all that I could remember of course all in FPGA). That’s because people are under big companies advertising influence… and brain washing.

It is hundred time better that you have real knowledge of how things behave then to have oscilloscope. I don’t say that I wouldn’t use oscilloscope if I can afford it but I say that every electronic job can be done without oscilloscope. How people think that lets say 20 GHz oscilloscope is born? Do engineers that design it have 100 GHz oscilloscope to debug it? Knowledge is power.

[alm]

So while I'd kinda trust you that you are able to design the hardware part of a modern scope that is comparable  to a state of the art device from the big names, I have my doubts that you can really deliver the same quality regarding GUI and measurement/analysis features. Especially if you want to do it all from the FPGA. There's a reason why the scopes with complex GUI and features use a full OS (Windows most of the times) with all its drawbacks.

I'm not so sure if that's the primary reason for choosing a commodity OS. I think it's more about connectivity and familiarity. I don't really see how programming a decent GUI and analysis features is going to be easier on Windows than on a lighter OS that doesn't take forever to boot. I agree with your point about not putting it all in the FPGA, however.

If you are targeting hobbyists then I see no reason you'd need to go above 100 MHz or even 50 MHz. A sample rate of at least 5x per channel, and preferably a way to combine two ADCs into two channels to get 1 GS/s for one channel. Like Rigol do.

I wouldn't try to compete with the companies like Rigol, your production costs are going to be much higher. In the higher (> 200 MHz) segment, the cheap Asian manufacturers have very few products, and the big boys like Agilent and Lecroy have much higher profit margins.

Even most average electronics stays below 200 MHz. High speed FPGAs and CPUs - sure they could be at 300 or 500 or more MHz, but if you can afford to play with them, you can probably afford to buy a 500 MHz scope .

Don't confuse repetition rate with bandwidth. A lowly ATmega328p might be limited to 10 MHz signals, but the expected rise time could be something like 3.5 ns, requiring a scope faster than 100 MHz to accurately characterize them.

[0xdeadbeef]

I'm not so sure if that's the primary reason for choosing a commodity OS. I think it's more about connectivity and familiarity. I don't really see how programming a decent GUI and analysis features is going to be easier on Windows than on a lighter OS that doesn't take forever to boot. I agree with your point about not putting it all in the FPGA, however.

Sure, there are other reasons for choosing Windows, e.g. MatLab connectivity etc. and of course it would be possible to program complex, touchscreen or mouse driven GUIs with your own mini-OS, but fact is that scopes without a big OS underneath tend to have simple GUIs, less features and no touch screen control.

I will certainly add all of fancy things that people think it is hard to do [...] That’s because people are under big companies advertising influence… and brain washing.

Of course everybody who needs a protocol decoder (like SPI, I2C etc.) is well aware that a decoder is not rocket science and that adding statistics, jitter analysis or whatever to simple measurements is more or less trivial as well. So of course the prices for these decoders and options are much too high from a consumer perspective. Then again, from an industry point of view paying 1000€ for an option is not that much if you think about what an engineer costs per day.

It is hundred time better that you have real knowledge of how things behave then to have oscilloscope. I don’t say that I wouldn’t use oscilloscope if I can afford it but I say that every electronic job can be done without oscilloscope. How people think that lets say 20 GHz oscilloscope is born? Do engineers that design it have 100 GHz oscilloscope to debug it? Knowledge is power.

Well, as always, it's usually more a matter of time and costs than lack of knowledge. Without proper debugging tools, finding sporadic issues in a complex project can get very expensive. And developing specific tools isn't cheap either.
Besides, scopes are also used for documentation, testing against specifications, quality assurance etc.

Anyway, I wish you the best for your project, though I honestly think that it might be too much for one single man to develop the hardware, the software and do the marketing.

[petar]

Thank you, 0xdeadbeef.
For equipment repairs or characterization and completely unknown signals I agree, one must to use oscilloscope, for development no.
Don’t underestimate FPGA power, especially for signal processing.
But FPGA is also peace of junk in wrong hands, but miracle in FPGA guru hands.
DSP processor is junk in comparison to FPGA.
Engineers doesn’t know to use FPGA right way and FPGA manufacturers also want that their client to be let say not smart, to use theirs cores… that are far from optimal… of course they don’t admit it even opposite… they love when something “can’t” fit in specific device and when user need more gates… more gates more…
User interface should be simple, but complete and useful.
I will not going to emulate processor and C programming way of implementing mouse control nor I will follow MPEG2 for display and that doesn’t mean that the screen will be crap. That only means that I don’t play movie on the screen, nor the photo of nude woman.
Processor and software driven user interface is inefficient because it support wider range of feature than is needed for the job and that’s why it is so slow, slow to make me nervous.
Petar, 

[EEVblog]

Just my 2cents: analog bandwidth and high sample rate are not everything for a good scope. The user interface, measurement/analysis options and customer support are also important - at least in an industrial environment.

I think you ultimately need both to have a successful product.
If you don't get the bandwith and sample rate good enough, there is far too much competition at the low end in which you'll never be able to compete.
But have spectacular bang-per-buck in the bandwidth/sample rate/memory department is not an automatic guarantee of success either, if your user interface or and/or software sucks.
It's a fickle business!

Dave.

[petar]

Guys,
If anybody of you knows does all that features like wave scan from LeCroy or other from other “big” players is patented.
Of course that I have no access to their internal documents and that I all design by myself and besides it is such a stupid thing…
But I know that companies like that patented air that we breed…
And I have another question.
Long time ago I wanted to my “imaginary” firm have name OmniDAQ (that name you can see at photos of my previous card…) and I owned omnidaq.com but I didn’t pay attention… and after few years somebody else hold that domain….
About few years ago I had been searching for available firm names (that isn’t total crap) and found that name GigaDAQ can’t be find either as a domain or on any document on the google.
I bought that domain almost two years ago. So gigadaq.com is mine, at least for now.
Few months ago I found on google that:
This is a brand page for the GIGADAQ trademark by OPTIM ELECTRONICS CORPORATION in Germantown, MD, 20874.
But at the later text says:
Word Mark: GIGADAQ Status/
Status Date:
ABANDONED - NO STATEMENT OF USE FILED
5/12/1998
Serial Number: 75190150 Filing Date: 10/30/1996 Registration Number: NOT AVAILABLE Registration Date: NOT AVAILABLE
Does it mean that the OPTIM corporation applied somewhere 1996 for the gigadaq mark and they are abandoned for that mark 1998 because the mark they are claimed actually don’t exist and they just wanted to have that mark to let’s say sale to somebody …
What is your opinion.
Thanks, Petar

[joelby]

If you're concerned about registering and defending trademarks, especially in international markets, you should talk to an intellectual property lawyer. In general, you shouldn't ask for nor rely on any legal advice you obtain online.

[philaburns]

My first thought is that maybe Optim applied for the trademark in the US - where it is essential to also file a Statement of Use indicating the product and/or services that the mark is intended to be used on - and then decided to use another name, therefore this trademark wasn't required and thus they let it go abandoned.  It is not uncommon for companies to file trademark applications for a number of different words/marks and then make a final decision later (possibly one example of in-house council being proactive and trying to stay a couple steps ahead of management who make the final calls sometime in the future...?). Not all countries worldwide require this statement of use to be filed with the trademark application (the US is one of only a few that do require it!) therefore, the particular name you are after may be registered in other countries, although my initial thoughts are that at least in the US, it is probably clear (subject to the usual disclaimers (see below)!).  I did also have a quick look at the Aus TM Register and, while "GIGADAQ" doesn't seem to be registered, there are a few marks that use the "DAQ" sufffix eg "NASDAQ" which 'could' cause issues of similarity.

Note that owing a domain name x.com or whatever or even a registered business name does not give you ANY intellectual property rights to the name! Only a registered trademark in the relevant countries AND for relevant classes will do this!

I suggest that if you want to look into this further you should engage a professional registered trade mark attorney to conduct a thorough search of the trade mark registers for the countries and products and/or services you are looking at and to give you some definitive advice.  If you want me to recommend  some good ones in Oz, send me a private msg.

Good Luck
Dr Phil

Please note my comments above are based only on a cursory review of this particular situation and DO NOT CONSTITUTE LEGAL ADVICE.  If you require anything further, please speak to your trade mark attorney.

[EEVblog]

I did also have a quick look at the Aus TM Register and, while "GIGADAQ" doesn't seem to be registered, there are a few marks that use the "DAQ" sufffix eg "NASDAQ" which 'could' cause issues of similarity.

And of course in this industry there are plenty of "DAQ" names, like of course National Instrument NI DAQ
And there are other SI units DAQ companies too:
NanoDAQ http://www.microsense.net/products-position-sensors-microsense-nanodaq.htm
MicroDAQ http://www.microdaq.com
MegaDAQ http://www.megadaq.com/
So you could argue there is precedent there, if that counts? So GigaDAQ would be likely lost in the noise.
I suspect National Instruments would be the only big corporate fish that would possibly care.

Thanks Dr Phil, EEVblog's resident patent and trademark attorney, who's advice only magically becomes good once you pay him! 

Dave.

[petar]

Thank you guys.
I didn’t have a time for earlier answer.
I definitely can’t have a legal advisor…
But I think that I will give up from GigaDAC and made a new name, one that no body on the planet (if that one isn’t crazy) can possible complain that has any connection with.
And I personally think that firm name in my case isn’t so important.
Thanks,
Petar
I apologize to those of you who think that I have just wrote nothing but I had to say thanks at least to guys that answered me.

[bartek]

Wow sounds like an awesome project! Also great to see you having so much passion, I know trying to create a business is not easy.

I'm not sure if its the language barrier (or just me) but I'm a bit confused about your intension for this thread, it doesn't seem like you want advice...

But anyway here is some advice ive been collecting for this area:

• less features than your competitors but do them really well
• decide what specific thing differentiates your scope from every other scope
• partner with someone who knows how to do accounting/sales/business plan
• improve your "sales pitch", overall it felt quite negative and could turn away people who potentially would want to help you
• be ready for criticism!

[bartek]

IMO there is room to innovate here in form factor, like for example making it an oscilloscope "backpack" for a tablet perhaps? With real knobs and buttons on the sides perhaps?

This is an awesome idea, an ipad app could do a better interface than pretty much any current scope

[ThunderSqueak]

IMO there is room to innovate here in form factor, like for example making it an oscilloscope "backpack" for a tablet perhaps? With real knobs and buttons on the sides perhaps?

This is an awesome idea, an ipad app could do a better interface than pretty much any current scope

People are starting to do this, http://www.oscium.com/index.php?q=products/mixed-signal-oscilloscope-imso-104/ is an example, bandwidth isnt there and I have yet to see one with physical knobs on it.   




for the same price as this stupid dongle you could buy this

[tekfan]

IMO there is room to innovate here in form factor, like for example making it an oscilloscope "backpack" for a tablet perhaps? With real knobs and buttons on the sides perhaps?

This is an awesome idea, an ipad app could do a better interface than pretty much any current scope

It always sounds like a good idea but in reality knobs are just so much faster to use than any touchscreen.

[Mechatrommer]

IMO there is room to innovate here in form factor, like for example making it an oscilloscope "backpack" for a tablet perhaps? With real knobs and buttons on the sides perhaps?

This is an awesome idea, an ipad app could do a better interface than pretty much any current scope

It always sounds like a good idea but in reality knobs are just so much faster to use than any touchscreen.

touchscreen is better at clicking button/navigate menu and scrolling perharps, imho. but for changing value/level/volume, nothing beat old stye rotating knob. i always shit on digital push up and down volume controller esp on car or radio player. for the touchscreen, i only concern its durability in professional or industrial environment, one eg we will not want the screen to be messed with black oily fingerprint.

[Mechatrommer]

I calculated BOM price for those interested.
These are single unit DigiKey prices excluding taxes
...
BOM   SUM  1184$ 
TAX  20%  237$
TOTAL   1420$

well, last time i checked GHz sampler ADC in digikey, it cost a fortune. you want to do 20GHz sampling? you sell me the adc alone i will not be able to afford that. i admire your capability though. the big PC screen and mouse is nice idea (i even have thought about the mouse interface a while ago), about the screen, i'm thinking building my own api like interface, except in serial spi etc comm from dedicated "monitor/UI controller" mcu to/from the front end/fpga/mcu, but thats just imagination/empty talk for now (i believe someone has done that, such as 3d engine, graphix etc)

[petar]

Thank you guys.
Sorry for delayed answers but I had no time.
Bartek, I actually don’t need any advice on how-to implement something I know all the aspects of the design, but I do need feedback if monitor screen and mouse is from your (all of you) point of view good solution for the user interface. I would personally like to design traditional bench scope but as I said I can’t find reasonable price for the 10” to 12” TFT screen and larger screens are even cheaper…
Before I posted this topic I was also thinking about user interface and the idea of having the traditional knobs along with standard PC screen was a bit strange to me because the “keyboard – knobs” is separated from the screen and that’s how someone would have a trouble using it… you know multiple function tasters have it representation on the screen, so I then thought to add some small and cheap graphical display close to multi functions tasters… but it look to me as not good idea, at the end all the tasters – knobs etc, graphical display… PBC for all of that … and I ended up with mouse – screen combination.
I personally think that the combination is good enough and if I make really fast response I think it can be for some things even better that knobs, also there is a while that can act as a rotating knob, so one would have to move the mouse pointer to some position and for example to scroll the while for a level or gain control.
All the instruments that I saw have a slow response to user commands I think if I make a real fast user interface it could be nice to user even in that combination of mouse-screen.
Mechatrommer I am sorry if you can’t afford it, I am struggling for my freedom and I want also to have peoples on my side and if I could make a ADC myself I would make a scope for couple of bucks.
I have also many ideas (that of course isn’t all mine) that can make each person life independent of world economy so no body needn’t to be afraid if he loose the job… and I would like that things lasts and to be good and not afraid of loosing future $ when I have certain amount that is less that many of you thought I don’t need any more $  (and of course I don’t want to collect $, I want to spend it on something that lasts).
That’s how I am not afraid if my future business puff out because I made too good thing that lasts and it is cheap (all of that feature would certainly make further business impossible).
Imagine what could be done if all the engineers around the world instead of fighting with each other have its personal goal that isn’t in opposite direction to all other. The efficiency would be better maybe 100 times and I can’t imagine what we could do.

Thanks,
Petar

[amspire]

Petar,

Really interested in your ideas. I am concerned that you seem to be looking at the something that is head-to-head with the mainstream products, and your bill-of-materials is very high. Even though you may be able to offer a bit more bandwidth, it seems you will be head to head with the new Rigol 2000 series with its great display and impressive features. And they did promise an "incredible" pricing for the range.

I was really wondering whether there are some more niche products that you may be better off with at the start, particularly if you can start with a cheap BOM.

1. Isolated inputs.  This is probably not easy since people will want to use them with switching power supplies. If you have a FET switching 400V in 20nS, that is something like 20 billion volts per second slew rate. If the isolated circuit is powered by a transformer with a 30pF interwinding capacitance, you can still get a 0.6A transient current through this capacitance.

2. Modern Version of the BWD powerscopes. 4 x 600V AC differential inputs. Bandwidth 20MHz or more. Even without much bandwidth, a scope with two separate differential input leads per channel is just incredibly useful. Most of the time, it is much better then the high speed differential probes that are difficult to connect to circuitry.

3. Following on from the idea above, an differential probe like the Fluke DP120.  Again, fantastically useful, if only they didn't cost about the same as two Rigol 100MHz scopes. If you could make a $99 probe, you would have a great product. If you could make a $49 probe, it would be a killer product. There is the potential for a very low BOM, so it could be a great way to start.

4. A 12 bit to 16 bit sampling scope. Bandwidth maybe 1GHz or more. 50 ohm 5V input.  Sampling scopes are never a replacement for real time scopes, but for the occasions when people do need the speed, they often can be made to do the job. They are great for single frequency repetitive waveforms, or looking at timing windows on high speed digital waveforms driven by a common clock.  Also there is the potential for the use of very cheap parts, and the A/D can run at a fairly slow speed, so you can use whatever resolution your circuit can handle. It may be possible to sample with a circuit based on two or four cheap 350pS 0.3pF Schottky diodes. you may have to match your own pairs of diodes. I read recently from a sampling scope designer that you can get up to 10GHz bandwidth using standard off-the-shelf parts (if you know what you are doing). At high frequencies, 50 ohm home made divider probes have higher impedance then passive probes that plug into a 1Meg scope input. It is not much use offering lots of bandwidth if the loading of the probe is going to change the waveforms anyway.

One of the huge things extra resolution gives you is much better FFT results. A high resolution sampling scope would be great for people who cannot afford or justify a spectrum analyzer.

Last thing -  LXI looks like being the new LAN instrumental communications standard. LAN is way better then USB as it has up to 1500V AC isolation, and you do not need a PC on the same desk. You could run the oscilloscope from a smartphone if you wanted using WiFi.

I haven't looked to see if there is a cost, but if you can get you product name on the LXI registered instruments, then your name would get out.

http://www.lxistandard.org/Products/ProductList.aspx

Richard.

[EEVblog]

Bartek, I actually don’t need any advice on how-to implement something I know all the aspects of the design, but I do need feedback if monitor screen and mouse is from your (all of you) point of view good solution for the user interface. I would personally like to design traditional bench scope but as I said I can’t find reasonable price for the 10” to 12” TFT screen and larger screens are even cheaper…

And therein lies the big problem with doing your own scope, and why there exist essentially two camps of devices.
Dedicated hardware scope with real knobs and a built in screen, and fully PC based scopes. You hardly ever see devices that require an external monitor and mouse, and there must be good reason for this.
I've said it before, but will reiterate. IMO a scope that is just a box and needs an external screen and mouse to operate is going to be a very disliked user interface. Why? Because whilst those external screens are cheap and readily available, no one wants one on their work bench taking up space. If they already have a notebook on their bench, then they will want to use that, not to mention the mouse as well.

Also IMO, unless you can come up with some novel form factor, you are much better off making your scope USB PC based. You might hate that, and think it's slow or whatever, but it will appeal to a lot more people than a box that needs it's own screen and mouse to drive it.

Dave.

[T4P]

The main point is that , USB 2.0 only works up to 480 Megabits/s and that is like only 60 Megabytes , so in RTS mode you either get 480MSPS or 60MSPS ( sorry , i don't know much about how they send information )
There's 2 methods : Dump ( Useful if the USB scope uses internal sample memory ) A little slow , can't get really lots of waveform updates .
Or the 2nd method : Constant Transfer ( Forgot the term but oh well ) Good , but very limited sample rate . High waveform update rate capability .

[EEVblog]

There's 2 methods : Dump ( Useful if the USB scope uses internal sample memory ) A little slow , can't get really lots of waveform updates .
Or the 2nd method : Constant Transfer ( Forgot the term but oh well ) Good , but very limited sample rate . High waveform update rate capability .

Both of which are perfectly acceptable trade-offs for a PC Based scope, and most people would understand and be happy with this.

Dave.

[Mechatrommer]

The main point is that , USB 2.0 only works up to 480 Megabits/s and that is like only 60 Megabytes , so in RTS mode you either get 480MSPS or 60MSPS ( sorry , i don't know much about how they send information )
There's 2 methods : Dump ( Useful if the USB scope uses internal sample memory ) A little slow , can't get really lots of waveform updates .
Or the 2nd method : Constant Transfer ( Forgot the term but oh well ) Good , but very limited sample rate . High waveform update rate capability .

i think he 2nd method is the "dumb" transfer (someone or dave talked/termed it last time iirc), the 1st method is only transfer upon trigger (internal memory). i believe with good HW implementation, 480Mbps is more than adequate for display purpose. one can do tens of K of update rate in HW and send through USB in some form of data.

[BravoV]

I still have not understood what you want from "us" - the forum readers.

I'm not sure if its the language barrier (or just me) but I'm a bit confused about your intention for this thread, it doesn't seem like you want advice...

Apparently he missed these important questions since the beginning, another bump just in case he really lost in translation.

My guess, even this is just another self bragging or show off thread (nothing wrong with this though and its perfectly fine), at least show us "part of" your design to convince this forum which I believe has many senior EE readers, and my aim is to hear those expert's comment on your work, otherwise all of this is just blank talks, aka nothing.

Just an example,  show us your analog scope front end design starting from the bnc connector to the adc, you don't even need to tell us what adc ic that you're going to use, and most important thing is to keep the 'ultra secret" back end that you claimed to be the "heart" of your great work, so your secret is safe. Just the analog front end, not that difficult right ?

Anyway, correct me if I'm wrong, you just can not hide too much from people to reverse engineer the analog front circuit unless you're using proprietary chip/ic in it, right ?

We're sitting nicely and waiting anxiously.

[Mechatrommer]

Apparently he missed these important questions since the beginning, another bump just in case he really lost in translation.

and maybe incase you missed (by reading many of OP's posts). this is a case of self rant and probably getting people emotional support. rant on how silicon costs nothing from sand, how economy and corporation sucks, how stupid consumers and investors are etc etc, and how poor (be assure that i'm poorer ) and under-financed the OP is albeit his excellent skills.

[BravoV]

and maybe in case you missed (by reading many of OP's posts). this is a case of self rant and probably getting people emotional support. rant on how silicon costs nothing from sand, how economy and corporation sucks, how stupid consumers and investors are etc etc, and how poor (be assure that i'm poorer ) and under-financed the OP is albeit his excellent skills.

Wow Mech, you're even worst than me  , I thought my posts already quite rude and harsh, now you called all of this are just rants from a forum member with excellent skills in building "elite grade" scope  nobody , sorry, nope, his skill set is not proven yet.

Honestly, I love to hear a rant, but from the expert or at least experienced EE, also a reminder this is one of the reason why we all still hanging around EEVBlog here, to hear and enjoy Dave's "professional" rants.

[petar]

Thank you Richard, for your recommendation. I appreciate your advice.
I will certainly make a differential probe for the scope as I think that is far more easier to achieve and that it could be done in so little space that wouldn't make a probe difficult to handle.
If anybody is still confused about what I want, please do not attack me, please wait for me to finish the scope. All the answer are clear for me, and I have recommendation for all that don't see it clear: read my first post and all the answer is there and if you still don't know what I want read it again and again and if you still want to attack me please instead of doing that just ignore my comments.

Best regards,
Petar 

[quantumfall]

Petar, Just some random thorts hope they help.

You will have to pick a user market Hobbyist, Education, Advanced but poor user who needs high performance. probably the list is endless because in reality you will be selling on price at the lower end almost certainly. If you want to sell to Pro, Labs  etc with big budgets they will pick the Agilents and Tektronics of the world.

You could have a unique feature, features that will offset selling price a bit.  may have many different grades of spec as well,  seems common in the O Scope business !!

Stand alone unit or PC Card ?  Its not very easy to plug a scope probe into your pc under your bench or even on top of your work area.

so that leaves stand alone box etc.  USB / LAN to PC, even blue tooth if you are only using the PC as a display device / controller you only need to update the screen at 60 Hz all processing / storage and capture in the device. Basically a full scope without controls or display.

good selling point could be design your own interface, twin screens.

Custom build your own or open source hardware external control panel with real rotary encoders, switches etc with USB / LAN or Blue Tooth this would appeal to hobbyists who want a project but would not attempt an FPGA Scope.

Just my random ideas.

I can't help feel at the end of the day it will come down to competition with the mass production / price of the Chinese manufacturing power house, unless you can get a slow
gradual relentless Hobby, open source way to volume supplying. with  firmware and parts, main logic board as a kit.

I hope this isn't a rambling load of old tosh

All the best to you.

[amspire]

If anybody is still confused about what I want, please do not attack me, please wait for me to finish the scope. All the answer are clear for me, and I have recommendation for all that don't see it clear: read my first post and all the answer is there and if you still don't know what I want read it again and again and if you still want to attack me please instead of doing that just ignore my comments.

Best regards,
Petar

Petar, If you know you have the capability to design this oscilloscope, then what we might think does not matter. You do not have to prove anything to us and you do not have to reveal all your secrets.

The thing is even if you can put together a design for the hardware that may work at 500MHz, all the debugging and development work, the product revisions and redesigns to get it right, the software, the PC drivers for all the different operating systems, and the case design just all sounds like way to much for one person to do. People are saying it as they see it.

What is really important is that before you start, you identify a market, and I think we may be struggling to see your market. Basically, no one wants to use a PC card based scope. Hardly anyone wants to use a USB scope that uses a PC for the display. If your BOM is $1000, then if you cannot sell the scope for something like $3000, making money would be near impossible with low quantities.

If you have the capability to make a differential probe box like the Fluke one that has enough common mode range and rejection to allow you to see an accurate gate waveform on the high-side N-MOS transistor in a rectified 240V mains switching circuit, then please make that first and sell it as soon as you can. Nothing like that is available at an affordable price right now. A warning though. They are not as easy as they look to design. Or more particularly, the design of the probes and the input stage is not easy.

I cannot see who would buy your 500MHz scope if you do not have a massive engineering budget, but everyone who works with switching power supplies and mains-side circuitry would want affordable differential probes. It is a perfect one-man project.

Richard.

[Bored@Work]

If you see questions of the form "What do you want?" as attacks, then you are more deranged than I thought.

[siliconmix]

The relays that could be seen on analog portion are very small 6mm reed contactors and I used omron relays with it magnetic field to activate the contactor underneath it.

We both know that semiconductor worth nothing. That is the sand, that each river carry a lot of…
We “all” think that some multi billion transistor processor worth let’s say 20$ in production, no that’s the lie. It worth nothing.
Someone would say it is true why you don’t make it and…
But I am certain if one from “poor” country would make such a thing, the guys from west would kill him, or kill entire country whichever is easier to do.
I am also certain that engineers that did all the jobs are less than 1% of the price we are paying for the product.

I saw that you say that: “If someone from China wants to copy your product you could do nothing”. Bad China… No, we are all humans we are all same. China is under total west control. All that is “steal” from the west is under direct control of the west people, so lets say this way: “If one from your neighborhood wants to steel something from you than he goes to China to make it there…”

In human history there is no single event where someone that has power to kill, and knows that he would win the war waits until other side becomes stronger than him. Every time when someone is shore that he would win the war was inevitable. Why USA don’t attack China (the only answer would be: China is under total control.)

couldn't  you just sell the design ?

[petar]

The PCI card that I finished 8 years ago is just a prototype.
I made a mistake and that’s why occasionally (lets say 1 sample in 10^6) has error.
I never made a second prototype to overcome mistake. The connector between the analog board and the digital has so few GND connection that eventually when too many simultaneously ADC bits change the error appear. That the reason why I later in all my designs used for each signal one near GND pin.
I am just a man, so I made mistakes. I made a lot of mistakes in the past that’s how I learned, I know that the hard way….

Thanks

[petar]

That's the first prototype made 2001. with many more mistakes but without mistake that I mention (because there is no connector....).

[EEVblog]

I cannot see who would buy your 500MHz scope if you do not have a massive engineering budget, but everyone who works with switching power supplies and mains-side circuitry would want affordable differential probes. It is a perfect one-man project.

I'd second that.
There is a massive market there just waiting to be tapped.

Dave.

[petar]

Thank you Richard, Dave and Quantumfall.

Please don’t think if I didn’t answer immediately that I think that yours recommendations isn’t good.

Guys I will think not twice but many times what would be my next step.

Petar,

[siliconmix]

i remember reading a while back on one of the metal detector blogs about a hobbyist  selling a prototype straight to a major manufacturer.

[zvonimirdjurdjic]

So, was this great scope ever created, or is this just another Serb with Tesla complex?