The Time and Trade Secrets of D²IS

The basic concept of the digitizing method called "Two Dimensional-Incremental Sampling", D²IS, has been patented by Bell Laboratories and is freely available from the US patent office. Then why the request for secrecy? Because the concept deals with manipulation of <time> and is not readily comprehensible from the patent-papers; even if these were written in common English language, which they are not. It took this author ten years to come up with a good description to makes it understandable. Whenever a manipulation of time is involved in a concept, the human mind seems to have difficulty comprehending it. The best definition of time that I know of came from an elementary-school fourth-grader, who said: "God created Time, so that not everything happens at once." This is also precisely the reason why time is being manipulated in two widely used methods for oscilloscopes, <sequential equivalent time> and <random equivalent time> sampling. The D²IS method is a new and even further extension of the equivalent time concept, which now also includes the digitizing process itself. Therefor the term "Dual" because both, frequency and amplitude are handled in equivalent time. For any specific technology, D²IS will always provide the highest bandwidth and resolution.

The request for secrecy has two reasons. First, all basic patents on oscilloscopes have expired and the T&M industry has reverted to Trade Secrets, just as it was customary in the Middle-Ages, when the Italian glass and mirror manufacturers kept their processes proprietary (by employing "death-squads"). E.g., it was not generally known what technology Tektronix is using in their new line of the THS medium bandwidth scopes. Only the senior T&M editors of electronics trade magazines are sometimes informed. (With a promise not to publish this information.) I learned from an editor that the Firm "PC-Instruments" has violated the D²IS patent since 1989.

The other reason for secrecy is that a successful development of a new concept can only take place when full understanding of it has been obtained. A good example is the recent scope-card developed by "National Instruments" which uses a new implementation of the "old" Sigma-Delta converter. (Several patents applied). ------ This need for "medieval" secrecy makes it nearly impossible to have the D²IS concept "judged" by even the most knowledgeable of T&M companies without a full disclosure of the new understandings on EQT sampling. As said above, the US-patent is of no help, because this author did not have full understanding at the time, and the patent attorney insisted on incorporating the basic concept into conventional scope architecture. This is like having a modern gasoline engine incorporated into a "horse and buggy", which will not give you a modern car. The DSO cards sold by "PC-Instruments" are actually designed to this outdated concept. (Also marketed by GEOTEST, INC. Irvine, CA and Guide Technology, Inc. San Jose, CA., and apparently well accepted by the customers)

Surprisingly, compared to the Sigma-Delta concept, D²IS becomes easy to comprehend with a better description. This deeper comprehension then makes it apparent that the old scope-system architecture can be completely reconfigured. The new architecture is that of a "Software defined Instrument", which makes the DSO extremely flexible and allows it to be software reconfigured for a large number of specialized application. Together with the predominantly digital nature of the circuits, the system is now eminently suitable for integration into an <Instrument on a Chip>. It is this new Software defined architecture which constitutes the Intellectual Property of this paper.

The information contained in the next 5 pages is Intellectual Property and highly proprietary. It should never be copied by any means, or routed to other engineers in your organization. --- Please respect this request. --------- Back to Index

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