In July 2016 Pico Technology will celebrate 25 years of business. Pico data loggers, oscilloscopes and signal generators are used by engineers, scientists and technicians around the globe to bring their products to market. Pico automotive diagnostics products help keep the wheels turning for vehicle manufacturers and service organizations on every continent.

1991 was an interesting year. Intel introduced the low-cost 486SX microprocessor, priced at $258. It was implemented on PCs running MS-DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.0. The World Wide Web Consortium was founded by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN, and the GSM mobile network was launched in Europe.

On 1st July Alan Tong and Mike Green co-founded Pico Technology. The company was originally set up as a software consultancy to develop data acquisition solutions using plug-in expansion cards, mostly for customers in the medical industry.

Pico, operating from Hardwick near Cambridge, introduced its first product, the ADC-10, so called because it was an analog to digital converter and sampled at 10 kS/s. It connected to the PC via the parallel port. The first order for ADC-10s was received in August that year, with two units sold for £49 each.

The ADC-10 was the world’s first PC Oscilloscope, and in the years that followed Pico notched up several more industry firsts, including the first oscilloscope with digital triggering and the first high-resolution oscilloscope.

Today, Pico has over one hundred employees at its head office in St Neots, UK and its subsidiaries in the USA and Lithuania. The company has three divisions producing Test & Measurement, Automotive Diagnostics and Radio Frequency test products that are sold worldwide.

Managing Director and owner Alan Tong said “Pico Technology are serving engineers, scientists and technicians with affordable instruments that capture, display and analyze the signals in their world. We take advantage of the latest computing and communications standards and provide excellent value with all-inclusive product packages that don’t require users to purchase additional options or licenses.”

“The company culture at Pico is key to our success,” continued Tong. “We treat customers as our friends, with free software upgrades and technical support for the lifetime of each product. Pico users are very loyal and have become strong advocates for our products amongst their colleagues. We also enjoy very low staff turnover – many of our employees have been at Pico for over a decade.”

“On 1st July we will celebrate with our employees; but we will also have in mind other people—suppliers, partners, distributors and former employees—who have enabled us to deliver 25 years of continuous growth.”

For more information about the Pico Technology history of PC-based test and measurement equipment visit: https://www.picotech.com/about/history.

PicoScope 2000 Series two-channel, four-channel and mixed-signal models have the functionality of an oscilloscope plus a logic analyzer (on MSO models), spectrum analyzer, function generator, arbitrary waveform generator, and serial bus analyzer with support for 15 protocols* included as standard. They are USB-powered and come in an ultra-portable package that can be easily transported in a laptop bag.

Pico Technology brings a new level of functionality and ease of use to its industry-leading PicoScope NVH Diagnostic kit. This award-winning (most recently the Elektra awards and AMR Beijing), system provides technicians worldwide with the tools to tackle troublesome vehicle noise, vibration and harshness (NVH) problems that are significant reasons for customer dissatisfaction. As part of Pico’s ongoing collaboration with major vehicle and equipment manufacturers, this system has now been substantially enhanced to improve diagnosis and provide more flexible analysis tools for problem areas in cars, trucks and off-road vehicles.

Pico Technology, the world's leading manufacturer of PC oscilloscopes, has introduced Release 6.11.7 of the PicoScope® software. This version of PicoScope provides significant new capabilities for engineers, scientists, technicians and researchers who are working on the latest generation of electrical and electronic technologies.