Product category:
Board-Level Instruments
News Release from: Dataquest Solutions | Subject: Spectrum M2i range
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 28 October 2005
PC-based instruments migrate to PCI-X
bus
Dataquest Solutions can now supply the next generation of Spectrum board-based instrumentation for the PCI and PCI-X bus.
As UK distributor in the of the Spectrum range of PC instrumentation, including ultrafast signal capture, waveform generation, digital I/O and digital pattern cards, Dataquest Solutions can now supply the next generation of boards for the PCI and PCI-X bus The new M2i range has evolved from the well proven "Mi" series, with a card base that is totally renewed so that a wide variety of new functions and features, many unique, are now incorporated
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 21 Jan 2008 at 8.00am (UK)
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PC instrumentation for very high speed signals
Capturing and/or generating megahertz signals with a computer based system need not be a complicated process, but it does require careful planning, says Mike Montague, MD of Dataquest Solutions.
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.
Most notably of these is an improved the onboard memory, now the deepest available with up to 4Gbyte possible.
Such a large memory imparts major advantages.
When data transfer to this memory is performed streaming through the PCI or PCI-X bus is not required, minimising loading on CPU time, so even processor hungry MS Windows packages like LabWindows, Labview, Dasylab, Agilent VEE, Matlab and FlexPro can operate simultaneously.
Further reading
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.
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.
Naturally text code programmers are well catered for with free driver software.
Indeed combining a code program such as C++ with a Spectrum card operating with the faster PCI-X bus allows real-time streaming of data to PC-RAM at 200Mbyte/s.
(The PCI-X bus is the new generation of PCI bus now available on many newer computer motherboards with a higher clock-through bus speed).
These boards are also 100% compatible with current PCI 32bit slots.
Although this older technology has a more restrictive bandwidth (about half that of PCI-X), the deep M2i onboard memory capabilities provide a way of still achieving extended ultra high-speed acquisitions.
Following on from customer requests another feature has been added.
Called ABA mode this allows changing from long-term slow and continuous data logging (through a process of sample decimation), to ultrafast acquisition on a trigger event.
This is handled by the hardware.
This is more efficient than having to write code in a post-process program and helps isolate in detail interesting events from reams of data.
It also reduces significantly stored file sizes.
At the sort of rates these ultra-high-speed cards can operate at this is a big advantage.
The level of decimation can be set in the driver code or the SBench software, a free graphical interface with virtual oscilloscope and logging facilities that is included with every board.
Where a high number of channels are required multiple cards may be used.
These can be zero-phase synchronised, which in itself is nothing new, but setting up of individual capture card sampling rates has been simplified, but at the same time improved.
Always there is a master board supplying a clock to the slaves.
Before now the slaves could only have certain divisions of this clock.
Now with the M2i series any integer can be used.
Also varying the number of channels operating on the master clock does not change the clock speed it outputs.
Before juggling between master clock speeds and slave clock dividers did work but was quite complicated.
This is not longer the case.
All boards can capture pre- and post-trigger data, but previously in one mode "Multiple Record" this was not possible.
Multiple Record is useful in that it allows triggers to be repeated very rapidly, in fact to less than 20 samples apart (that's less 100ns on the 200Msample/s boards).
The downside was that only data after the trigger could not be logged.
Now pre-trigger data is available and furthermore trigger delay is programmable too, another feature customers have requested and which Spectrum now provides.
So for example, if your trigger comes from an external source that is also providing a stimulus to an experiment where you know the resulting effect is delayed you need no longer capture redundant data before the event arrives.
The enhanced trigger engine can be set to detect level, edges, slope and those that meet pulse width criteria.
TTL triggers can operate in a gate function giving a tight control over start and stop of capture, or it could be a simple software trigger.
Altogether a trigger engine suitable for nearly every application.
The M2i series will succeed the Mi series, keeping all of the best well proven features.
This includes Time stamping of trigger events, programmable input gain ranges with signal offset capability and synchronised digital inputs.
We will still continue to supply the older (series one) cards henceforth for several years to come for those happy with their current systems, in the belief of giving the customer long-term support and choice.
For those who have already created program code for the earlier series a driver software compatibility layer has been created, making adaptation to the new M2i series easy.
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