Acquisition software boosts digital I/O capability

National Instruments has released a new version of NI SignalExpress, its interactive software environment for acquiring, comparing, automating and storing measurements on the benchtop.

National Instruments has released a new version of NI SignalExpress, its interactive software environment for acquiring, comparing, automating and storing measurements on the benchtop.

SignalExpress 1.1 delivers new high-speed digital I/O capabilities for mixed-signal design, validation and test as well as increased hardware support of NI modular instruments and data acquisition devices and other common stand-alone instruments.

With the software, engineers can use virtual instrumentation on the benchtop to save time performing interactive analogueue and digital measurements.

"The new high-speed digital capabilities in SignalExpress 1.1 make it a great tool for performing common A/D convertor measurements", said Mike Byrne, Applications Engineering Manager at Analog Devices.

"The unique SignalExpress interactive measurement environment enables designers to quickly and easily take mixed-signal measurements to characterise and validate their laboratory prototypes without the requirement to program".

"Furthermore, SignalExpress saves designers a significant amount of time by directly importing and comparing simulation signals with their live measurement data".

With the SignalExpress 1.0 release, NI introduced a new, interactive approach to taking benchtop measurements through virtual instrumentation.

SignalExpress features an easy-to-use, drag-and-drop environment, which is ideal for engineers and technicians who require short time to measurement without programming.

The new SignalExpress 1.1 introduces a suite of high-speed digital capabilities, including digital pattern generation, acquisition, processing, comparison and file I/O.

With this new functionality, engineers can accurately compare two digital patterns and convert digital patterns to analogue signals for time-domain signal analysis and comparison.

In addition, engineers can easily view their digital signals by simply clicking and dragging them to the new digital data display in SignalExpress.

Engineers can now achieve enhanced analogue measurement functionality using SignalExpress 1.1, which offers support for National Instruments digital multimeters in addition to support for high-speed digitisers, arbitrary waveform generators and data acquisition devices.

Engineers using traditional instruments on the benchtop can take advantage of new stand-alone instrument connectivity steps in SignalExpress.

By using SignalExpress to control their existing stand-alone instruments, such as Tektronix 3000B Series oscilloscopes, engineers can perform lightweight measurement automation for simplifying data transfer to a PC, performing online signal processing and analysis, saving data to file and sweeping measurements across a range of frequencies or levels.

SignalExpress builds on NI Express technology, introduced with NI LabView 7 Express, by integrating with the LabView graphical development environment.

Engineers can instantly convert SignalExpress projects to LabView block diagrams for applications such as automated system validation and manufacturing test.

Engineers can also use LabView to extend the functionality of SignalExpress by creating user-defined steps for a variety of specialised analysis tasks.

SignalExpress is available for Windows 2000/NT/XP.

Engineers can learn more about SignalExpress through the NI Measurements in the Design Flow Partner Web Event Series, which highlights product integration and design and measurement techniques from industry-leading collaborators such as EMA Design Automation, SolidWorks, Tektronix, National Semiconductor, Electronics Workbench and Analog Devices.

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