Software designed instruments cover swathe of applications

5th August 2014

NI-Emerson

Mick Elliott

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Datasheet

NI has unleashed a new wave of software designed instrumentation encompassing new instrument types and automated test applications, further freeing, says the company, engineers and organisations from the costs and limitations of vendor-defined instruments. These latest software-designed instruments address automated test and research applications across wireless and mobile devices, semiconductor, automotive and aerospace/defence industries.

The instruments are a 14-bit, 250 MS/s, 300 MHz, 8-channel oscilloscope, a 26.5 GHz high-performance RF vector signal analyser, a 12-bit, 2 GS/s, 2 GHz intermediate frequency digitiser and a 12.5 Gb/s, 8 TX/8 RX lane high speed serial instrument.

Prathima Bommakanti, industry analyst for measurement and instrumentation at Frost & Sullivan gave the launch a thumbs up. “Providing a user-programmable FPGA can lead to astounding benefits for the customer, enabling them to drill down into the instrument and change the performance drastically. With this new class of instrumentation, users are able to turn the instrument into whatever they need, a paradigm shift in an industry in which products have essentially been defined by the vendor as opposed to the customer.”

NI software-designed instruments contain a user-programmable FPGA customised with the familiar graphical data flow of LabVIEW system design software, eliminating the need for specialised languages such as VHDL and Verilog, costly digital design experts or payments to instrument vendors each time a customisation is needed.