Product category:
Board-Level Instruments
News Release from: Dataquest Solutions | Subject: Spectrum Mi72xx, Mc72xx and Mx72xx
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 21 July 2004
PC-based generators put logic devices to
the test
A series of pattern generation boards available in PCI, 6U CompactPCI and PXI formats offers the speed and power required for testing all today's high-speed logic devices.
Over time an increasing number of digital logic standards have evolved Where originally TTL and CMOS were the main standards, the newer low-voltage versions LVTTL and LVCMOS are now in common use
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 20 Aug 2003 at 8.00am (UK)
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Acquisition range takes on demanding applications
The Spectrum PCI ultra-high-speed board range is claimed to push forward the boundaries of PC-based data acquisition and waveform generation.
PCI acquisition boards handle fast datastreams
With an aggregate sample rate up to 200Msample/s, the MI30 series of PCI data acquisition boards provides a way to capture the extremely rapid signal events with excellent resolution.
Another factor in the evolution of digital communication is the need for high-bandwidth low-noise communication, and this has led to the introduction of ECL, PECL and most recently LVDS, whose differential signal connection provides greater noise rejection.
For the test engineer and system designer, finding PC-based hardware specifically designed to generate high-speed digital patterns covering these all these standards can be a problem, particularly when there is a requirement to produce unique custom patterns at high speeds from large stored datasets of megabyte or even gigabyte scale.
Spectrum, one of Europe's leading manufacturers of innovative PC instrumentation, has met this requirement with a series of pattern generation boards available in PCI (Mi72xx series), 6U CompactPCI (Mc72xx) and PXI (Mx72xx) formats.
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Docking stations take PCI acquisition in hand
A novel range of PC-Card docking stations enables standard PCI data acquisition hardware to be used in the field with notebook PCs.
Acquisition board runs up to 125Msample/s
The Spectrum Mi70 series has been designed to meet requirements for ultrafast bit capture and generation with speeds up to125Msample/s.
These boards feature programmable outputs whose logic low and high levels may be set to an accuracy of +/-10mV anywhere between -2 and +10V, thus covering all the recommended levels for the aforementioned logic families.
Patterns generated can be up to 32bit wide, but this may be subdivided into 4 bit "nibbles", each individually programmed to produce a versatile mix of logic levels including the electrically differential outputs for ECL, PECL and LVDS.
This feature when combined with the ability to separately disable the (tristate) outputs, provides for easy, flexible, circuit interface options, all in one piece of hardware.
Where the requirement is for even greater numbers of bit patterns, or simultaneous capture or generation of analogue data, this series can be synchronised with others from the manufacturer's ultra-high-speed range to make an extensive analogue/digital system.
With signal bit updates from 1Ksample/s to 40Msample/s, the speed range is designed to meet the demanding bitrate requirements in industries such as semiconductor circuit design and testing, communications and digital control.
However, generating such long streams of data does require deep memory.
These boards offer up to 512Mbyte on the PCI and cPCI versions and 128Mbyte on the physically more compact PXI format.
Alternatively FIFO mode can be used, with data streamed directly from PC RAM or hard drive.
In addition to 16 and 32bit-wide patterns, a memory-saving 8bit-wide mode can also be programmed to further extend the data streaming period.
Spectrum's official UK distributor, DataQuest Solutions, is on-hand to provide expertise and a wide selection of Windows and Linux code drivers.
Third-party packages are also well catered for, with driver and examples options for Matlab, LabView, LabWindows CVI, DasyLab and Agilent VEE.
All the boards from the Spectrum range come with free lifetime technical support and a 2-year warranty.
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