Hi,
What would be the fastest CPU we could analyze using the CW-Lite before moving to a faster FPGA or using an oscilloscope?
Cheers
Hello,
First off - sorry for the slow response - had issues with the forum not notifying me about new posts for some reason. I think it’s fixed now… but anyway:
You can fairly safely use this with up to about a 100MHz CPU. You may be able to exceed that - devices running encryption in software can sometimes run the measurement at a slower speed than the CPU. But using the CW analyzer under normal synchronous conditions means you are limited by the sample rate of the ADC, which caps out at 105 MS/s.
If attacking hardware crypto, you may want to use the 4x ADC sample rate to simplify your initial analysis. This would give you a max frequency of about 25 MHz (as at 25x4 = 100Mhz ADC frequency).
-Colin