NI High-Speed Digitizers: Optimized

for Automated Test

Prior to these products, high-bandwidth digitizers and oscilloscopes have

incorporated features and functionality best suited for benchtop use. An

unaddressed area in this high-bandwidth space has been the automated

test use model, where measurement throughput and test system

footprint can dramatically affect overall cost of test.

NI high-speed digitizers are the first high-bandwidth digitizers on the

market that share three characteristics making them uniquely optimized

for automated test: high data throughput, tight synchronization between

channels, and ease of integration with other instrumentation.

High Data Throughput

Bus bandwidth and latency, two common considerations for an automated

test system, dictate the overall speed of your measurement system.

Latency describes the amount of time it takes for an instrument to respond

to a remote command, like a measurement query. Bus bandwidth refers

primarily to the data throughput capacity of the data bus that connects the

measurement instrument with the host PC or controller.

The PXI platform – upon which NI high-speed digitizers are built –

provides high speed due to the high-bandwidth and low-latency PCI and

PCI Express buses. Both PXI and PXI Express data throughput rates are

significantly faster than that of GPIB, USB, or LAN – other popular buses

for automating test instrumentation. This translates to lower test times.

Tight Synchronization between Channels

The PXI backplane offers a built-in common reference clock for

synchronization of multiple digitizers in a measurement or control

system. Each slot has a 10 MHz TTL clock, transmitted on equal-length

traces, providing picosecond-level synchronization between digitizer

modules for high-channel-count systems. For example, it is possible to

have 34 phase-synchronous 1 GS/s channels in a single PXI chassis, and

even scale to higher channel counts.

Ease of Integration with Other Instrumentation

Test systems typically contain many instrument types, including signal

sources, measurement devices, and switches. The PXI platform has

unparalleled breadth, with modules for analog and digital I/O, high-

speed instrumentation, vision, motion, and numerous bus interfaces.

More than 1,500 PXI modules are available from the more than 70

members of the PXI Systems Alliance (PXISA). So you can not only build

a comprehensive test system in a single chassis but also synchronize

modules in that chassis to picosecond-level accuracy when using

NI modular instrumentation.

High-Speed Digitizers – Optimized for Automated Test

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Figure 1. The PXI platform provides the best combination of high-bandwidth and

low-latency measurement throughput.

Figure 2. The PXI platform delivers picosecond-level synchronization

between instrument modules.

Figure 3. The PXI platform supports more than 1,500 instrument modules.