This invention relates generally to measurement and data acquisition systems including integrated circuit probes and measurement systems.
Measurement systems are oftentimes used to perform a variety of functions, including measurement of physical phenomena, measurement of certain characteristics or operating parameters of a unit under test (UUT) or device under test (DUT), testing and analysis of physical phenomena, process monitoring and control, control of mechanical or electrical machinery, data logging, laboratory research, and analytical chemistry, to name a few examples.
A typical contemporary measurement system comprises a computer system, which commonly features a measurement device, or measurement hardware. The measurement device may be a computer-based instrument, a data acquisition device or board, a programmable logic device (PLD), an actuator, or other type of device for acquiring or generating data. The measurement device may be a card or board plugged into one of the I/O slots of the computer system, or a card or board plugged into a chassis, or an external device. For example, in a common measurement system configuration, the measurement hardware is coupled to the computer system through a PCI bus, PXI (PCI extensions for Instrumentation) bus, a USB (Universal Serial Bus), a GPIB (General-Purpose Interface Bus), a VXI (VME extensions for Instrumentation) bus, a serial port, parallel port, or Ethernet port of the computer system. Optionally, the measurement system includes signal-conditioning devices, which receive field signals and condition the signals to be acquired.
A measurement system may typically include transducers, sensors, or other detecting means for providing “field” electrical signals representing a process, physical phenomena, equipment being monitored or measured, etc. The field signals are provided to the measurement hardware. In addition, a measurement system may also typically include actuators for generating output signals for stimulating a DUT or for influencing the system being controlled. These measurement systems, which can be generally referred to as data acquisition systems (DAQs), are primarily used for converting a physical phenomenon (such as temperature or pressure) into an electrical signal and measuring the signal in order to extract information. PC-based measurement and DAQs and plug-in boards are used in a wide range of applications in the laboratory, in the field, and on the manufacturing plant floor, among others.
Multifunction DAQ devices typically include digital I/O capabilities in addition to the analog capabilities described above. Digital I/O applications may include monitoring and control applications, video testing, chip verification, and pattern recognition, among others. DAQ devices may include one or more general-purpose, bidirectional digital I/O lines to transmit and receive digital signals to implement one or more digital I/O applications. DAQ devices may also include Source-Measure Units (SMUs), which may apply a voltage to a DUT and measure the resulting current, or may apply a current to the DUT and measure the resulting voltage. Measurement systems, e.g. DAQ devices as noted above, may also include oscilloscopes and/or other types of signal analyzers, signal generators, function analyzers, etc.
Typically, in a measurement or data acquisition process, analog signals are received by a digitizer, which may reside in a DAQ device or instrumentation device. The analog signals may be received from a sensor, converted to digital data (possibly after being conditioned) by an Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC), and transmitted to a computer system for storage and/or analysis. Then, the computer system may generate digital signals that are provided to one or more digital to analog converters (DACs) in the DAQ device. The DACs may convert the digital signal to an output analog signal that is used, e.g., to stimulate a DUT or to influence the system being controlled.
Oscilloscopes are one type of widely used measurement instruments. Oscilloscopes may be used with what are referred to as “active probes,” which receive power and transmit signal to the host oscilloscope through the interconnecting cable. Existing active probes are intended to be hand-held. The mounting of a (normally) hand-held probe is awkward in an integrated circuit (IC) test fixture, which is typically a printed circuit board assembly. As the probe must be located very close to the signal node being probed to minimize any loading effects, space constraints might limit the maximum number of mountable probes.
Other corresponding issues related to the prior art will become apparent to one skilled in the art after comparing such prior art with the present invention as described herein.
In various embodiments, disadvantages associated with present day active probes, e.g., active probes used with oscilloscopes, may be overcome by implementing an active probe entirely as a packaged integrated circuit. A small, low pin count package may be selected to facilitate the mounting of many probe ICs in a small area. The probe IC may include an interface for configuration as well as customized software that controls the IC and measurement instrumentation, for example, an oscilloscope, for the selected application. Various embodiments of a probe IC proposed herein may encompass different types of probes, including active probes and passive probes, voltage probes and current probes, or single ended probes and differential probes.
This Summary is intended to provide a brief overview of some of the subject matter described in this document. Accordingly, it will be appreciated that the above-described features are merely examples and should not be construed to narrow the scope or spirit of the subject matter described herein in any way. Other features, aspects, and advantages of the subject matter described herein will become apparent from the following Detailed Description, Figures, and Claims.
The foregoing, as well as other objects, features, and advantages of this invention may be more completely understood by reference to the following detailed description when read together with the accompanying drawings in which:
While the invention is susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments thereof are shown by way of example in the drawings and will herein be described in detail. It should be understood, however, that the drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit the invention to the particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the present invention as defined by the appended claims. Note, the headings are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to be used to limit or interpret the description or claims. Furthermore, note that the word “may” is used throughout this application in a permissive sense (i.e., having the potential to, being able to), not a mandatory sense (i.e., must).” The term “include”, and derivations thereof, mean “including, but not limited to”. The term “coupled” means “directly or indirectly connected”.
Embodiments of the present invention may be used in systems configured to perform test and/or measurement functions, to control and/or model instrumentation or industrial automation hardware, or to model and simulate functions, e.g., modeling or simulating a device or product being developed or tested, etc. However, it is noted that the present invention may equally be used for a variety of applications, and is not limited to the applications enumerated above. In other words, applications discussed in the present description are exemplary only, and the present invention may be used in any of various types of systems. Thus, the system and method of the present invention may be used in any of various types of applications where measurement probes are used with instruments, e.g., measurement instruments such as oscilloscopes.
While various embodiments are described herein in greater detail with respect to an oscilloscope, the connectivity/connection technology described herein may equally be used with, and/or applied to many other test instruments, such as a function generator or digital test equipment (i.e., semiconductor test equipment). In various embodiments, a novel probe IC may be coupled to an instrument for performing measurements or acquiring/delivering data/information from/to the instrument and/or or otherwise facilitate interacting with the instrument.
Probe IC 140, probe IC 200, and probe IC 300 may all include configurability by the oscilloscope, measurement instrumentation or system software.
instruments which may use one or more probe ICs for performing measurements and tests. Computer 82 may comprise a CPU, a display screen, memory, and one or more input devices such as a mouse or keyboard as shown. Computer 82 may operate with the one or more devices and/or instruments to perform an automation function, such as MMI (Man Machine Interface), SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition), portable or distributed data acquisition, process control, and advanced analysis, among others, on process or device 150.
The one or more devices may include a data acquisition board 114 inserted into or otherwise coupled with chassis 124 with associated signal conditioning circuitry 126, a PXI instrument 118, a video device 132 and associated image acquisition card 134, a motion control device 136 and associated motion control interface card 138, a field bus device 170 and associated field bus interface card 172, a PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) 176, a serial instrument 182 and associated serial interface card 184, or a distributed data acquisition system, such as the Compact FieldPoint or CompactRIO systems available from National Instruments, among other types of devices. In some embodiments, similar to the system shown in
In addition to the above, the following features may be added to or implemented in any of the various different versions of probe ICs disclosed herein:
In some embodiments, any one or more of the instruments and/or the various connectivity interfaces of computer 82 (coupling computer 82 to the one or more devices) may be implemented such that power is delivered to a probe (used to connect to any one or more of the instruments and/or connectivity interfaces of computer 82) over the same connection also that carries the signal back to the instrument when using a probe IC 200 as shown in
Although the embodiments above have been described in considerable detail, other versions are possible. Numerous variations and modifications will become apparent to those skilled in the art once the above disclosure is fully appreciated. It is intended that the following claims be interpreted to embrace all such variations and modifications. Note the section headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to limit the description provided herein or the claims attached hereto.
This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 63/589,503, titled “Probe Integrated Circuit and Measurement System” and filed on Oct. 11, 2023, and U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 63/590,892, titled “Probe Integrated Circuit and Measurement System” and filed on Oct. 17, 2023, which are both hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety, as though fully and completely set forth herein.
Number | Date | Country | |
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63589503 | Oct 2023 | US | |
63590892 | Oct 2023 | US |