M1 Waveform Tools™: Serial Decode

The decode capabilities in M1 Waveform Tools allow you to view encoded waveforms in terms of what they're doing, and then apply the powerful debug, analysis and embedded intelligence of M1 to get to the bottom of problems you see in decode mode. Currently, decode types supported natively by M1-OT includes 8B10B, CAN, LIN, FlexRay, I²C and SPI. If you need a different encoding type, the new External Decode App will let you define a new encoding. Keep an eye on the M1 Apps Store to see what new encoding types are available.

When you're trying to get to the bottom of a problem in your encoded waveform, being able to see when things happen... what values are present or not present... how often certain values or groups of values come up, can provide important insights into rapidly drilling down to the source of the problem. The current release of M1 has several unique views to do this, which include viewing your encoded waveform fields (address, data, control when appropriate) versus time (i.e. see when that value/values occur) as well as viewing how the range of values distribute in a histogram.

Another useful new exploratory mode occurs when searching for values of a field (e.g. frame starts, data values, addresses, R/W, etc.). Decode Search in M1 allows you to search on individual or multiple values, for example, multiple address values for I2C or multiple PID valus in a LIN waveform... you can move from one specific event to another and M1 will keep the decode-timing view synched with the M1 ScopeView as well as any other vs-time views. This will allow you to rapidly associate potentially pathological waveform features by their proximity to the event. These unique insights can be the difference in rapidly finding the root cause of a problem vs lingering on it for days.

In the example above, M1 is shown decoding FlexRay data. In the top view, a histogram shows the distribution of Data Bytes we have seen in this acquisition, while the 2nd view shows those data bytes in the order that they occurred. Note that this TimeView is synched to the ScopeView at the bottom using M1's Sync Axes feature, allowing you to correlate information across domains via the ScopeTrack box. In the tab, the Search dropdown shows that we can search for Frame Start events, Byte Start events, or one or more Data Byte values. The Decode Tab is also where the Decode TimeView and HistoView at the top of the screen are opened and closed from.