Maximizing the measurement accuracy of digitized signals

Analysis of digitized waveforms requires an understanding of the limitations of the acquisition hardware, an understanding of how digital sampling interacts with the waveform shape, and an understanding of how the desired measurements are influenced by the sampling operation. By paying attention to these considerations and following some general guidelines an acquisition system can be tuned to get the most accurate results for each type of measurement. This paper provides guidelines for obtaining the best measurement results for digitized waveforms by highlighting the interactions between the waveform to be acquired, the acquisition system capturing the waveform, and the measurements desired.