100M-sample/sec, 14-bit digitizer and 25- and 50-MHz digital-I/O modules are first to support PXIe
By Dan Strassberg, Contributing Technical Editor -- EDN, May 21, 2007
National Instruments has announced what it calls the industry’s first PXIe (PXI Express) high-speed instruments as well as the industry’s first 18-slot PXIe chassis. The modular instruments include the 100-MHz, 100M-sample/sec, dual-channel PXIe-5122 digitizer and the 50- and 25-MHz, 32-channel PXIe-6537 and PXIe-6536 digital-I/O modules. The PXIe-1065’s 18-slot chassis offers dedicated bandwidth of as much as 1 Gbyte/sec per slot and both PXI and PXIe slots. According to the company, the PXIe products target applications such as signal intelligence, spectral monitoring, semiconductor-chip characterization and video test.
“PXIe builds on commercial PCIe [PCI Express] technology to increase the number of applications the multivendor PXI standard serves,” says Eric Starkloff, National Instruments director of test-product marketing. “Adding a high-speed data-streaming capability to PXI maintains the compatibility among more than 1200 modules from more than 70 vendors that has made the standard a leading modular-instrumentation platform.”
The new instruments add to the manufacturer’s extensive list of PXI mixed-signal products, which include high-speed digitizers and oscilloscopes, high-speed digital-I/O modules, baseband and RF analyzers, and signal generators. The new instruments enable high-speed data recording and playback through the newest industry-standard bus, PCIe, which, on a bidirectional, four-lane link, delivers as much as 1 Gbyte/sec of streaming throughput. For example, with the four-lane-link-based PXIe-5122 digitizer, you can simultaneously capture analog signals on two channels with 14-bit resolution at 100M samples/sec and stream the signals across the PCIe bus to the PC’s memory or hard disk at the digitizer’s full rate of 400 Mbytes/sec. You can also use the X1-link-based PXIe-6536/37 digital-I/O modules to stream digital waveforms to and from the module at the full 200-Mbyte/sec data rate.
The PXIe-1065’s 18-slot chassis complements the PXIe-1062’s eight-slot chassis to address higher-channel-density PXIe-based systems. The new chassis includes a combination of PXI and PXIe hybrid slots to accept both current PXI modules and higher bandwidth PXIe modules. All of the PXIe products integrate with a variety of software, including the manufacturer’s LabView graphical-development environment, LabView SignalExpress interactive-measurement software, and TestStand test-management software. Prices for the PXIe-5122 digitizer, the PXIe 6536/37 digital-I/O modules, and PXIe-1065 chassis start at $5499, $1799, and $5499, respectively.
