NI Upgrades Software-Based Test Instrumentation

12th August 2013

Mick Elliott

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National Instruments has added updates to its NI LabVIEW reconfigurable I/O (RIO) architecture. The most significant are new instrument driver FPGA extensions, a feature of the NI RF signal analyser and RF signal generator instrument drivers that combine the flexibility of the open FPGA with the compatibility engineers expect from an industry-standard instrument driver.

FPGA extensions build on the release of the world’s first software-designed instrument, NI’s vector signal generator. The extensions make it even easier for those with little to no FPGA programming experience to access the benefits of an open FPGA to better meet application demands with additional processing and control.

Engineers already using vector signal transceivers can upgrade their drivers then mix application-specific FPGA code with standard instrument driver code. Another addition to the LabVIEW RIO architecture is the NI PXIe-7975R NI FlexRIO FPGA module, which offers the latest Xilinx 7 Series FPGA technology for automated test and high-performance embedded applications. The FPGA module doubles the data streaming bandwidth to 1.6GBit/s and quadruples the on-board DRAM to 2GBit when compared with current FPGA modules.

Two new NI FlexRIO adapter modules, the 4.4GHz NI 5792 receiver and NI 5793 RF transmitter, are also available. To address greater processing requirements for floating-point math, NI improves the CPU capability of the LabVIEW RIO architecture with the new NI PXIe-8383mc PXImc adapter module. With NI PXImc technology, engineers can spread floating-point processing across multiple CPUs in the system the same way fixed-point processing deploys across multiple FPGAs.