Saleae Logic – A Sweet Logic Analyzer
I just started using a very cool logic analyzer from Saleae. It’s a small-ish USB dongle with 8 or 16 probes (I have the more expensive 16 probe model). The software that drives the device is very slick and works on Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux — pretty impressive to see software of this kind supporting more than Windows (or Linux as an afterthought).
I find the built-in protocol analysis functions extremely useful: the current version of the software supports decoding data on various peripheral buses including SPI and I2C which are common in embedded systems. There is also an Analysis SDK for writing analyzer plug-ins to cover anything the vendor hasn’t already implemented. Very cool.
Another cool way to use the device is with the Device SDK, which is a set of libs that allows you to access the raw probe samples and write your own analysis tools. I can see this being very useful in some advanced QA automation in the future.
Best of all the price is very right! Even a casual hobbyist can justify the 8 probe model.
Go check the product out for yourself: http://www.saleae.com/logic/