PCI Express Arbitrary Waveform Generator up to 125 MS/s

8th October 2007

Spectrum GmbH

ES Admin

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Spectrum is one of the first manufacturers world-wide to release a full product series of Arbitrary Waveform Generators (AWG) for the PCI Express bus. The new product series is 100% software compatible to the PCI cards of the M2i series of the manufacturer and also uses the same analog modules. The AWG family contains 10 different models with 1 to 4 synchronous channels and sampling rates up to 125 MS/s. Each card can run as freely programmable signal and test pattern generator or it can be used via an internal synchronization option together with one of the digitiser cards of Spectrum.

It is possible to output any waveform from the on-board memory which can be up to 4 GByte. The whole on-board memory can also be used as a big FIFO buffer allowing to output data continuously for hours.
Each channel can be individually programmed for offset, gain and filtering. The output drivers of the card can output a maximum of 3V in 50 Ohm load. It is possible to reach a high output level of 10V using the optional amplifier cards.
During the development of this card family a lot of customer requests have been incorporated leading to a huge number of easy-to-use and powerful features. As an example, the Single-Restart mode allows to repeat a free programmed waveform on each external trigger event. The dead time is only 4 clock cycles making it possible to react to a new trigger event after only 40 ns when using 100 MS/s output rate.
The card is delivered with drivers for Windows 2000, XP, Vista as well as Linux kernel 2.4 and 2.6. On all operating systems the 32 bit as well as the 64 bit version are supported. The easy-to-program drivers and the powerful examples together with the detailed documentation allow a fast development of own applications. As usual from Spectrum there are also drivers for MATLAB, LabVIEW, LabWindows, DASYLab and VEE available.