Who would like a more capable Digital Discovery (poll)

[leonvs]

Digilent provides very nice test and measuring equipment. At the Analog level, the different devices are becoming more capable by the day, see the ADP5470/90. Although the Analog capabilities are utterly important, the world is becoming more and more digital. At the digital level, Digilent actually only provides the Digital Discovery. Compared to this device, the digital capabilities of all other devices are more restricted. I own and ADP3450 and a Digital Discovery but find that I hardly use the digital capabilities of the ADP3450 because of its low sample rate and smaller buffers.

However capable the Digital Discovery is, it has some room for improvement that would make it a great, future proof, device. Given the rate with which Digilent generates new equipment, I think the Digital Discovery is lagging behind and I would like to propose a Digital Discovery II.

What this device would need (in my opinion) is:

1. Faster USB. A USB3 interface would be very nice to transport data to the PC much faster. In 2024, USB2 is a little outdated.
2. Adaptive threshold levels. The digital inputs need at least a setting for the threshold. A range setting would be nice. Already in 2007, the Intronix LogicPort provided digital inputs for a voltage range from -6 to 6V and a selectable threshold. Also the ADP5470/90 offers this, it can be done.
3. More flexible trigger options. The Digital Discovery trigger options are limited. What is needed are counters for triggering when a certain event has occurred a variable number of times. Also combined triggers would be very nice leading to triggering options like a signal is logic one for a specified time AFTER a certain signal edge has occurred for a specified number of times. Again, the Intronix from 2006 offers this in a single FPGA implementation, it can be done......

I think many people would be glad to see a Digital Discovery II and I hope that by reacting to this post this interest is expressed and I wish that Digilent will do something with this request.

[attila]

Hi @leonvs

Thank you for your feedback.

The ADP3X50 with newer software version has deep, 4x32Mi scope, 16x32Mi logic and 2x32Mi awg buffers.
The ADP2230 has USB3 deep memory but the DIO voltage/threshold is not adjustable.
The ADP5000 are VirtualBench devices with GHz sampling rate, dmm, ps..., but lack special features like record, am/fm, protocols

[leonvs]

Hi Atilla,

thanks for your response. Agreed, all these devices have great capabilities. My point is that the digital capabilities like up to 800MHz sampling rate are only available in the Digital Discovery. Yes, the ADP5490 samples up to 1GHz but when I understand the specs correctly may have a very small buffer.

I assume that digital capabilities are needed more and more in a world becoming more digital by the day. From that point of view, a Digital Discovery-II would be a dream device having the capabilities I mentioned. Even today I was using a Digital Discovery in a demo for some colleagues. After the demo, I asked what they thought the price of this device is. I was astonished, they did not know the Digital Discovery and given the capabilities assumed it would cost somewhere between €1.500 and €2.000. In turn they were astonished it only costs something like ~€250

Their reference was the Salea logic analyzer and given the added capabilities of the Digital Discovery it is reasonable that it would be much more expensive than the Salea. Actually the Digital Discovery is ridiculous cheap. Most competing products (the serious ones) are much more expensive. Perhaps Digilent does not realize what people are willing to pay for such a device. My company used to buy Saleas without thinking. My guess is that:

• With the mentioned capabilities a Digital Discovery-II would be a dream device
• It would have no competition
• People are willing to pay much more for it, covering the development effort. Really, would the Digital Discovery have a price tag of €500 to €1000 I would buy it without thinking again and the same goes for the company I work for.

The triggering capabilities in my opinion are the greatest drawback of the current version. Using a Digital Discovery to haunt for errors in patterns is very complex now because of the limited triggering capabilities.  For more advanced triggering, as already said, the Intronix Logicport is my reference.

 

 

[attila]

Hi @leonvs

The ADP5000 Logic Analyzer can capture up to 1M samples. However with high signal activity this can be limited to 4k. Most probably it stores compressed data.

I have forwarded your post to marketing.

[leonvs]

Thanks Atilla, regardless all technical details, the final decision is to be taken by marketing. And just to make clear, I love the Digital Discovery so much that I would like to love it even more......