A few quick notes...
We've
been working our tails off on some really useful enhancements to M1, both on the
technology and business levels. They're done, they're cool and the normal next
step is to tell you all about them.... newsletter, web content to back that up
and at least two white papers that give you the details on how best to deploy
this stuff.
But it's also the
Friday before we break for Christmas and the weather experts tell us we'll have
a 16" snow storm rolling in around noon (bring it on! just got the blower
attached to my tractor about 30 min ago... it's 230 am now). I don't feel like
asking my guys stick around through the storm, and most of you have checked out
until January anyway, so here's the plan. We'll put out this abbreviated
newsletter that gives a taste of the things we've done in the last cycle. After
New Year's, we'll fill
in the backing content and send around a mini-newsletter with all the web
links.
We
really filled out the collaboration model in M1OT with this release and I'd
encourage you to look at this carefully. The other big addition is our site
licensing model. The economics on this are stunning, and it also includes an
upgrade path to Enterprise as other campuses in an organization also adopt M1.
We already have a few companies talking about site licensing with us about this
and I feel this was a good program for us to bring to our customers. There are a
range of unique services provided to Site and Enterprise customers... we'll fill
that in when we get back in January.
One
last point before checking out for a while. I'd like to welcome an old friend on
to the ASA team. Carol Nunnally has joined us as our Regional Sales Manager for
the Western US. Back in the mid-90's, Carol was a field engineer for HP T&M
and was one of the first people to sell M1. She's smart, she's got a very strong
technical background and she has a pro-customer mindset that was the basis of why I offered her the
job!
Done...
Have a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year!
- Mike Williams, President - ASA
M1 OT v6.02 will
be released in early January 2009, and includes several new
features to aid in collaboration, as well as opening up the use of
scope Function channels to M1 to facilitate de-embedding.
Scope Function
channels
/de-embedding
Some new high-speed data standards like PCIe 2.0 at 5
GT/s require the de-embedding of fixture effects when making
measurements. ASA has not yet committed to developing a native
de-embedding capability in M1. However, with v6.02 we have
enhanced M1 to
retrieve data from scope Function channels, which is where native
scope software will create the de-embedded data, and have M1 treat
that data exactly the same as if it had come from a standard
channel. This improvement will allow users to employ other
de-embedding techniques and tools to produce the de-embedded trace
(or any other processed trace)
in the scope, and then pull that trace in so that it can be analyzed and tested using the full power of M1 OT.
"By providing
access to the native de-embedding capabilities from each scope
company, M1 allows customers to work with their preferred method
while still giving the customer access to superior Rj/Dj
technology, a wide range of no-cost compliance tests, and all of
the other sophisticated capabilities only available in M1."
said Mike Williams, President of ASA.
Transmitted
waveform
compression
M1 waveform files can contain vast quantities of
information, especially when working with deep-memory scopes
and/or using multiple channels. This isn't
normally a problem when you are only storing and accessing saved
waveforms locally, but sharing data among
geographically-distributed collaborators can be restricted by
transmission
path limits (e.g. email, FTP). To address this issue, ASA
has enhanced M1's waveform-sharing technology to both reduce the
size of the transmitted payload and provide a non-email path
(FTP).
M1 v6.02
introduces a compressed saved waveform format (VTC) that will
significantly reduce the amount of space required for these files,
making emailing or FTPing them that much easier. You can
expect to see a minimum compression of 50%, with 70-80% being more
typical, versus the standard VvT waveform format.
Send
Waveform: Send only part of a waveform
Sometimes the 'interesting' behavior only happens during a
small portion of a deep-memory acquisition. Or perhaps you
need an answer fast and don't have time to FTP the entire
waveform to the expert. To assist you, M1's Send Waveform
facility will now allow you to specify a subset of the entire
waveform to be sent.
The region to
be sent can be selected in one of two ways. Most easily, the
user can select an active measurement being displayed in 'vs Time'
mode and send only the data currently being shown in that view.
Alternately, the user can specify the beginning and ending
positions as percentages of the entire acquisition. In
either case, M1 will then extract and send only the specified
portion of the waveform.
Send
Waveform: FTP
M1 users have enjoyed the ability to email a waveform from
within M1 for some time. However, corporate limits on email
size have effectively barred the transmission of waveforms larger
than 5-15MB. The new compression format mentioned above
allows users to squeeze 4-5x more waveform into that limit, but a
limit still exists.
To address this,
ASA has extended their Send Waveform functionality to
automatically employ an FTP path when payload size exceeds the
user's corporate limit. In addition to managing the FTP
transmission and reception from within M1, the new capability also
handles communication of the fact that a waveform has been
transmitted with a unique email capability. All an intended
FTP recipient need do is click on the attachment of the email and
M1 will download the file and automatically process it and come up
showing the exact measurements and settings that were present when
the file was sent, allowing you to get right to work without
having to recreate what the sender was looking at.
Acquisition
Status Indicators
To provide the user with a greater level of feedback while M1
is acquiring and processing data, ASA has added a series of Status
Indicators to the Basic View
Controls just below the main viewing area. These indicators
will blink yellow during processing and then turn green as M1 completes each stage of the
process: Acquisition of waveform data from the scope or file, Transformation
from waveform data to edge crossing times, and Calculation of the
requested measurements.
Should something require operator attention, the relevant indicator will turn red,
letting you know to check the status bar for an error message.
