PCI version of high dynamic range digitiser now available

Test & Measurement

19 April 2006 Test & Measurement

Design and test engineers can use the new PCI version of the National Instruments' PXI-5922 flexible-resolution digitiser, also known as a PC-based oscilloscope, to make a wide range of dynamic measurements.

This digitiser provides exceptionally high dynamic range and now being available in PCI form factor is useful for applications in a variety of industries including communications, semiconductor, biomedical and ultrasonic nondestructive test (NDT).

Unlike traditional oscilloscopes and other PC-based digitisers with fixed resolution for all sample rates, National Instruments says that the NI 5922 digitisers use its NI Flex II ADC, which has flexible, user-defined resolution and can sample anywhere from 24 bits at 500 KSps to 16 bits at 15 MSps. The NI Flex II ADC is an enhanced multibit delta-sigma converter that incorporates patented techniques to greatly reduce harmonics caused by nonlinearity that is inherent to multibit converters. This results in an unprecedented dynamic range at even high sample rates, which design and test engineers can use to directly digitise low-level signals without the need for external signal conditioning, such as filters and low-noise amplifiers.

Reduced signal conditioning improves measurement accuracy and reliability. The PXI-5922 has won several awards including the 2006 Test Product of the Year by Test & Measurement World magazine and Hot 100 Products of 2005 by EDN magazine. Engineers can use it to solve demanding applications such as high-end audio and ultrasound testing, characterisation of high-resolution digital-to-analog converters and baseband I/Q analysis.

As with other NI digitisers, these flexible-resolution digitisers can be used with arbitrary waveform generators and digital waveform generator/analysers to build mixed-signal applications at any stage in a product's development - from design and validation to manufacturing test.

With NI digitisers, such as the NI 5124 200 MSps 12-bit digitisers, the NI 5122 100 MSps 14-bit digitisers and the NI PXI-5114 250 MSps 8-bit value digitiser, design and test engineers can quickly develop a measurement system with the more than 50 measurements that are built in to the NI-SCOPE driver software. All NI digitisers come with this driver, which works with the National Instruments LabVIEW graphical development environment, NI SignalExpress interactive measurement software, NI Measurement Studio for Microsoft Visual Studio .NET and the NI LabWindows/CVI ANSI C development environment.

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PCI version of high dynamic range digitiser now available

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