Box-level digitizing systems capture 2G samples/sec

-- EDN, 4/13/2000

Acqiris wants you to think of its Cougar waveform-digitizer systems as a different breed of cat. Although some specifications are similar to those of high-performance DSOs, the company intends the products for different applications in fields such as telecommunications, power measurement, ultrasonics, and mechanics.

The systems differ from DSOs in several ways. The most obvious is the lack of built-in displays (picture). Also, the trigger circuits offer fewer features than those of many high-end DSOs. The Cougar units excel, however, in their degree of programmability and their ability to rapidly transfer data to the host CPU's memory. The maximum transfer rate is 100 Mbytes/sec, a speed that, according to the manufacturer, neither standard DSOs nor VXI-based digitizers can come close to matching.

Limited bus length normally forces CompactPCI systems to locate an embedded-CPU module in the same backplane as the I/O modules. Several companies offer hardware that allows a separate desktop PC to act as the host, however, and each Cougar system includes such a Compact PCI-to-PCI interface.

Based on 6U-size CompactPCI high-speed digitizers, the box-level products provide as many as four channels in a 13.5x13.6x4.2-in. enclosure. The channels simultaneously digitize signals in a 500-MHz bandwidth to 8-bit resolution. (Modules of the 6U size are relatively uncommon in the CompactPCI world. Acqiris also manufactures the more common 3U-size modules and offers hardware that allows users to mount two 3U modules in one 6U slot.) Conversion speeds are as high as 2G samples/sec/channel, and memory depth is as great as 4M samples/channel. A system with four channels, 150-MHz bandidth, 500M-sample/sec conversion rate and 128k-sample/channel memory costs $11,990 including software and drivers that run under Windows (95, 98, and NT4.0) and VxWorks. Systems having as many as 28 analog-input channels are available.

Acqiris, 1-877-227-4747, www.acqiris.com.

-by Dan Strassberg