Product category:
Board-Level Instruments
News Release from: Strategic Test | Subject: UltraFast UX4540
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 14 June 2004
Two-channel digitiser claims a speedy
first
The UltraFast UX4540 is billed as the industry's first 3U PXI card with two high-speed 16bit vertical resolution digitiser channels.
The UltraFast UX4540 is billed as the industry's first 3U PXI card with two high-speed 16bit vertical resolution digitiser channels With the release of this card, engineers and scientists can now acquire high dynamic range signals at rates to 1Msample/s
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 4 Jul 2002 at 8.00am (UK)
Related stories
Embedded SBC takes automotive DC supplies
The Zeon StrongARM computer board is optimised for embedded industrial and automotive applications.
Ultra-fast sampling board runs up to 125Mbit/s
The UF.7021 is a full-length PCI board with 64 digital input or output channels that can simultaneously capture and replay signals at a maximum sample rate of 125Mbit/s.
Typical applications include medical research, mechanical engineering, shock wave testing, explosion tests, imaging, nondestructive testing, acoustic emissions, CCD testing, vibration analysis, laser diode characterisation and impact testing.
The card combines the advantages of 16bit resolution, single-ended or differential input termination, four input ranges, programmable input offset and up to 64Msample memory.
"Our mechanical engineering and biomedical research customers in particular, have been asking for a high performance card that allowed them to measure high dynamic range signals", stated Bob Giblett, President of Strategic Test.
Further reading
16bit acquisition cards for simultaneous sampling
A new series of data acquisition cards from Strategic Test has been designed for measurements that require simultaneous sampling at a maximum sampling rate of 1MHz.
Onboard RTOS puts card in charge of testing
The new MAX6pci data acquisition card can be configured with one or more MAX-PC CPU modules to handle time- or safety-critical tasks on a test rig.
Ultra-fast performance from arbitrary board
The UF6000 is a high-speed arbitrary waveform generator board from Strategic Test.
"The design team created a card that not only packs two channels in a 3U form factor, but also managed to achieve a 89dB SNR, SFDR of -89dB and an ENOB figure of 14bit".
The UX4540 provides two input channels, each with a 16bit ADC for true simultaneous sampling, 1Msample/s maximum sampling rate, a 500kHz bandwidth, internal and external triggering and external clocking.
Each channel can be programmed with one of the four input ranges +/-1 to +/-10V and the input signal can also be offset adjusted by up to 100% of each range.
Together with the programmable single-ended or differential input termination, AC/DC coupling and a choice of 50ohm or 1Mohm impedances, the user is able to configure each channel so that it is optimised for each signal source.
Like all of the UltraFast PXI, PCI and CompactPCI digitiser cards, the UX4540 sampling rate can be programmed from 1Ksample/s to the 1Msample/s maximum rate when using either the onboard clock, or when using an external clock signal - a feature often used to synchronise the card to external equipment.
In either case, the user is free to specify any sample rate within these ranges and the software driver will automatically adjust the onboard clock signal hardware divider and PLL to obtain the closest possible match.
As many digitiser cards limit the available sampling rate to a few pre-selected ranges, Strategic Test has created an application note (AN01 "Sampling rate determination") that describes its technology in greater detail.
This can be downloaded from the company's website.
The UX4540 can record signals to onboard memory or continuously transfer the digitised data gap-free across the PXI bus to the PC host at up to 100Mbyte/s (50Msample/s).
There is an extensive list of available options.
Apart from expanding the onboard memory from the standard 8 up to 64Msample in various increments, there is the multiple recording option for recording a series of waveforms at very high speed (over 20,000 per second are possible), gated sampling that starts and stops the recording when an external TTL signal changes level and a high-speed digital inputs option that allows 16 TTL or CMOS level signals to be acquired at the same speed as the ADCs, a feature often used to record high-speed events or status information from other equipment.
Software drivers for Windows XP, 2000, NT, Me, 98 and Linux are supplied, while drivers for Matlab, LabVIew, Agilent's-VEE and DasyLab are available as cost options.
Strategic Test also includes its SBench measurement/oscilloscopes program running under Microsoft Windows.
This supports all of the UX3131's features.
Signals can be recorded and displayed graphically then cursors used to make graphical analysis such as measuring peak values.
Statistical calculations and FFTs can be performed on the data.
More sophisticated analysis can be performed created using third-party programs, such as Matlab by exporting the signal data as ASCII/Text files.
The UltraFast UX4540 with 8Msample memory costs $6034, with 16Msample $6958, 32Msample $8029, 64Msample $9254.
Prices are based on the current Euro/US$ exchange rate.
OEM prices are available on request.
• Strategic Test: contact details and other news
• Email this article to a colleague
• Register for the free Electronicstalk email newsletter
• Electronicstalk Home Page
Search the Pro-Talk network of sites
