M1 Waveform Tools vs Agilent DCAj

Product charting reveals how much more capable M1™ ($995-$6495) is than DCAj ($30,000+++)

• M1 Waveform Tools supports more Agilent scopes than DCAj does, and of course, more LeCroy, Tek and Yokogawa scopes.

• You get some Rj/Dj capability in DCAj. But it doesn’t do error calibration, does not calibrate instrument noise out, is not validated over a broad jitter space, cannot tell you when it has converged or diverged, and does not specify it’s typical error in detail as M1 Oscilloscope Tools™ does.
• M1 provides the best RjDj Decomposition Correlation in the Industry -- M1 is the only waveform software that provide measurement correlation regardless whether you are using Agilent, LeCroy or Tektronix scopes.
• M1's RjDj decomposition throughput is much better than the DCAj when testing PRBS-9 and higher. DCAj's Edge Modeling makes an assumption about edges. It assumes that all edges look like the modeled edge. In the real world, there are lots of edges that don't look like the model. That's why you want to see each edge for what it truly represents to your design.
• M1 can measure both repetitive and random data waveforms -- making it useful for both characterization and debug. DCAj can only measure repetitive waveforms.
• DCAj, being a sampling scope, does not offer the same debug flexibility as M1 on a real-time scope can.
• Because the DCAj requires repetitive signals, it consequently can miss rare event jitter. Hence in the presence of real-world jitter, it can under-estimate jitter.
• The sample rate of the scopes that M1 works on are so much higher
  (i.e. 40 GSa/s) than the DCAj's 40 kSa/s, M1 is much more likely to capture worst case jitter than the DCAj.
  
• DCAj has a significant weakness in that it under-samples most of today's typical waveforms, according to Nyquist, and as such Nyquist says that reconstructing higher frequency components of jitter that are non-stationary and time-variant is impossible at frequencies above half of the sampling rate. This pertains to both Voltage-vs-Time and to Time-versus-Time waveforms.
• Compliance tests are “extra” – $2000-$9000 each.
• Eye-diagram and serial-data tools are extra &ndash $3995 - $7995
• Debug – extremely limited compared to M1 OT.
• Automation – No ability to automate sequences of measurements or add measurements. M1 has ScriptBuilder, an intuitive graphical tool for clicking them together quickly.
• Productivity – nope.
• Portfolio – no offline analysis or no client/server (M1 Reader), no LabView.
• Product philosophy things – No scalable pricing, proprietary, not portable, fine-grained á-la-carte-ing (i.e. you pay for the sugar), and it costs more to own because of these things.
• Summary vs M1 Waveform Tools: DCAj costs more, does less