Text preview for : 5991-0512EN Oscilloscope Measurement Tools to Help Debug Automotive Serial Buses Faster - Applicatio part of
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Keysight Technologies
Oscilloscope Measurement Tools to Help
Debug Automotive Serial Buses Faster
Application Note
Introduction
The primary reason engineers use oscilloscopes to debug and characterize automotive serial
buses, such as CAN, CAN FD, LIN, SENT, and FlexRay, is because of an oscilloscope's inherent
ability to characterize the analog quality of these signals. Performing analog characterization
using an oscilloscope is often referred to as "physical layer" measurements. Serial bus protocol
analyzers are optimized at performing measurements at the "application layer". Instruments such
as these are focused on providing trace flow of data at a higher abstraction level -- but at the cost
of providing little or no physical layer measurement capability. A scope is not a replacement for a
serial bus protocol analyzer, but neither is a serial bus protocol analyzer a replacement for a scope.
Engineers working on automotive serial bus applications typically have both.
Although there are many oscilloscopes on the market today from multiple vendors that offer
automotive-focused options, the Keysight Technologies, Inc. InfiniiVision Series oscilloscopes
offer some unique measurement capabilities (only available in Keysight scopes) for debugging and
characterizing the physical layer of automotive serial buses including: