National Instruments Extends Oscilloscope Offering to 2 GS/s Real-Time, 20 GS/s Equivalent-Time Sampling

Engineers can readily use the new module as a full-featured oscilloscope for time-domain measurements right out of the box. Unlike traditional oscilloscopes, engineers can configure the same PXI-5152 digitiser through software to perform custom measurements in many application areas such as semiconductor chip characterisation, ultrasonic nondestructive test, biomedical and communications.

The module features 300 MHz bandwidth and ranges from 100 mV to 10 V with 50 ? and 1 M? software-selectable input impedance. With deep onboard memory up to 512 MB, the module can make long acquisitions or store a large number of records in the multirecord acquisition mode. In addition, engineers can synchronise multiple PXI-5152 modules using National Instruments T-Clock technology for building systems with up to 34 channels in a single PXI chassis with sampling at 1 GS/s and synchronised to picosecond-level accuracy among the modules.

The new PXI digitiser adds to a family of NI products that deliver high speed, high resolution and high density. The same NI-SCOPE driver seamlessly works with each of the devices. Engineers can integrate the new PXI-5152 module with a variety of NI hardware including arbitrary waveform generators and digital waveform generator/analysers to build a complete custom mixed-signal application. Such a mixed-signal platform in PXI not only helps engineers achieve tight correlation between the analogue and digital waveforms but also expands the system’s channel count and signal type. The module also works with all National Instruments software including NI LabVIEW as well as other common development environments such as C, Microsoft C++ and Visual Basic.