Strategic Test Announces PCI Express Waveform Generators

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Strategic Test has announced the availability of the world's first PCI Express based Arbitrary Waveform Generator boards. With synchronous multi-channel capability, the AWG boards are well suited for demanding signal processing applications that include I&Q signal generation, RADAR system development, communications testing, laser positioning, and HDTV signal generation. There are four new AWG boards in the UF2e-6030 series with a choice of 1, 2 or 4 channels and 14-bit resolution:

- UF2e-6030 1 channel, 125 MegaSamples per second (MS/s) maximum;
- UF2e-6031 2 channels, 125 MS/s each channel;
- UF2e-6034 4 channels, 125 MS/s on two channels or 60 MS/s maximum on 4 channels.

Each channel has its own 14-bit Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC) to ensure synchronous output and a choice of three reconstruction filters (5th and 4th order Butterworth lowpass) giving bandwidths of 25 MHz, 5 MHz or 500 kHz. A no-filter option is also software-selectable. Typical dynamic specifications include signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of better than 61 dB, total harmonic distortion (THD) of less than 71.5 dB and spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) greater than 72 dB.

As with all UltraFast instrument boards, the advanced sampling clock design consisting of a hardware divider and PLL allows the user flexibility in defining their optimum sampling rate. In the case of the UF2e-6000 boards, the output rate can be selected between 1 kSample/s and the maximum rate of DAC. The driver automatically adjusts the on-board hardware to provide the closest sampling rate possible. This value can be returned to the user program.

The board can be equipped with a second user selected quartz crystal oscillator for applications that require a highly accurate specific output rate.
The boards are supplied with 32 MSamples of signal memory as standard, but can be expanded to 2 GSamples through a proprietary onboard DIMM module. The signals can be downloaded to on-board memory, output one time, or continuously until stopped, or continuously streamed gap-free from the host PC RAM or hard disks.

The following options are available for each board allowing the user to customize the instrument:
- Onboard memory: 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024 or 2048 MegaSamples;
- Multiple Replay (memory segmentation);
- Gated Sampling (output clock controlled by external TTL signal);
- Digital Outputs (2 bits per DAC, synchronous);
- Star Hub (synchronization of up to 5 or 16 boards, or 5 to 16 PC's. Can be used with Digitizer and Digital I/O boards to create mixed mode systems);
- BaseXIO (adds 8 asynchronous digital I/O lines);
- Amplifier board (increases output range from +/-3 V to +/- 10 V).

Strategic Test also provides software support with the following Software Development Kit's available:
Windows Vista and XP64, XP, 2000, NT and 98;
Linux drivers for RedHat, Suse, Fedora and Debian;
MATLAB;LabVIEW;Agilent-VEE;LabWindows/CVI;DASYLab.

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