Re:That's nice (Score 2, Insightful)

Well, logic analyzers aren't dead just yet. I work for Agilent (used to be HP), and we still make quite a few of 'em. Although the JTAG-based tools for internal FPGA logic analysis like Chip Scope are very useful and relatively inexpensive, they present some limitations (like consuming the internal block RAM of the chip) that traditional LAs don't have. Like anything, there are tradeoffs. Agilent has some tools that customize our logic analyzers to make internal FPGA measurements more easily and bridge the gap between the internal tools and the traditional LA. For example, we have a tool for MicroBlaze debug that lets you easily probe the internal MB signals and bring them out to an Agilent LA for trace, inverse assembly and correlation with the original source code. There is a tool called FPGA Dynamic Probe that works well for 'generic' logic debug as well. Traditional LAs can be very useful for tracking down the complex interactions between parts of designs implemented in FPGAs, discrete processors, memory systems and peripherals.