Performance introduction and application analysis of CX3300 current meter waveform analyzer

Power Analysis Expert

With the following four unique advantages, N6705 has become the standard solution for power consumption analysis of software and hardware including smart terminals, IoT (Internet of Things), AI (artificial intelligence), VR (virtual reality), etc.

Seamless range switching technology to measure currents in a wide range (8A-80nA);

Up to 200 KHz (5us) current sampling rate, accurate measurement of pulse current;

Up to 1000 hours of continuous data recording to meet the measurement needs of various application scenarios;

Visual current test software, current test and operation synchronous measurement.

How do the above 4 features enable accurate power consumption measurement and analysis?

From the horizontal scale (time):

Narrow current pulse measurement, fast sampling speed (sampling rate)

Application scenario measurement Continuous measurement, sampling time should be long (storage depth)

On the vertical scale (current amplitude):

Low sleep current, uA, or even below nA (noise floor)

The operating current is large, tens of mA or even A, requiring extremely high dynamic current measurement capability (A/D vertical resolution)

Typically, engineers use N6705 to replace batteries to power the DUT and measure and analyze the current consumption of the DUT in various working states and modes.

The N6705 DC source analyzer can accurately measure and diagnose the power consumption of the device under test, as well as whether the hardware or software power consumption performance is abnormal. As shown in the figure below, if the battery end measures abnormal power consumption of the product, how to determine which sub-circuit, chip or module is causing it, and how to accurately locate it?

CX3300 current waveform analyzer uses external voltage and current probes to facilitate circuit debugging and distributed current measurement.

The figure below is a schematic diagram of the current distribution test of an evaluation board.

In addition, compared with N6705, CX3300 has higher sampling rate and bandwidth; wider current measurement range; more flexible triggering and waveform analysis. The following table compares the main technical indicators and parameters:

More indicator parameters and indicator comparisons are shown in the following table:

It should be noted that when testing the current distribution at different locations of the circuit board, the peak value and frequency of the current often vary greatly due to different module and component parameters.

The figure below shows the actual measurement of a low-power Bluetooth BLE module, comparing the current waveforms on the power supply side VBUS and the module VDD side.

in conclusion:

On the same circuit board, the current waveforms at different test points (TPn) are quite different;

The sampling rate requirement is related to the circuit and module. At the battery end, due to the influence of the filter circuit of the circuit board itself, the waveform difference is small; but for different locations such as chips, modules, and sensors, the peak value and frequency of the current are quite different.

CX3300 one-click "power consumption characteristics" extraction - MCU protocol corresponding current characteristics

Zooming in requires feature extraction waveform, as shown below

Analysis->Auto Profile, start Auto Profiler.

Then click [Perform] to automatically perform power consumption characteristic analysis

Save to XPS file, one-click "Automatic Power Consumption Characterization" automatically generates detailed power consumption characteristic report.

Power consumption feature reporting can be optimized by adding/removing