April 25, 2011 - National Instruments released the PXIe-5186 digitizer. Co-developed with Tektronix, the NI PXIe-5186 digitizer achieves up to 5 GHz bandwidth and 12.5 GS/s sample rates. The company also announced the NI PXIe-5185, which delivers 3 GHz bandwidth along with 12.5 GS/s sample rate. Both digitizers are part of the National Instruments PXI-based hardware and software platform, which provides optimized performance for automated test applications.
Proprietary Tektronix performance oscilloscope ASICs in the new digitizers provide the foundation for high-speed signal acquisition with low noise and high linearity, and are based on the highly-reliable IBM 7HP SiGe process. An example of the superior signal fidelity delivered by Tektronix Enabling Technology is the incredibly low sampling jitter of the digitizer. The very low 500 fs RMS integrated jitter of the digitizers results in a remarkable 5.5 effective number of bits (ENOB) at 5 GHz. National Instruments proprietary technology delivers high-data throughput for faster test execution and precision multimodule timing and synchronization for building high-channel-count, integrated test systems. Designed for the 3U PXI Express platform, the digitizers can stream at rates as fast as 700 MB/s and synchronize channels on multiple modules to within 160 ps resolution. These capabilities make the digitizers ideal for applications such as automated production test, semiconductor ATE and high-energy physics measurement systems.
The digitizers work with NI LabVIEW graphical design software for instrument control and automation, the NI LabWindows/CVI ANSI C software development environment and Microsoft Visual Studio .NET development tools for a wide range of programming options. Engineers can program the digitizers using the NI-SCOPE instrument driver or the new LabVIEW Jitter Analysis Toolkit, which offers a library of functions optimized for high-throughput, jitter, eye diagram and phase noise measurements.
"We are excited about our work with Tektronix to jointly develop a product that combines the strengths of both companies: Tektronix for high-speed digitization and NI for software-defined instrumentation," said Dr. James Truchard, president, CEO and cofounder of National Instruments. "These new digitizers further demonstrate the impact of Moore's Law on test applications, bringing higher performance to smaller footprints such as PXI."
About National Instruments
National Instruments is transforming the way engineers and scientists design, prototype and deploy systems for measurement, automation and embedded applications. NI empowers customers with off-the-shelf software such as NI LabVIEW and modular cost-effective hardware, and sells to a broad base of more than 30,000 different companies worldwide, with no one customer representing more than 4 percent of revenue and no one industry representing more than 15 percent of revenue. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, NI has more than 5,200 employees and direct operations in more than 40 countries. For the past 12 years, FORTUNE magazine has named NI one of the 100 best companies to work for in America.
