Agilent Technologies Introduces Compact, Low-Power Digitizer That Maximizes Measurement Throughput

(Product News, 13 Jun 2007)

Agilent Technologies Inc. has introduced its first digitizer from the Acqiris product line. The Acqiris DP1400 high-speed digitizer features a compact design and highly integrated technology for extremely low-power consumption as well as a unique simultaneous multibuffer acquisition and readout (SAR) mode that significantly improves measurement throughput. Agilent acquired Acqiris in November 2006.

Designed in a standard short PCI card format, the compact Acqiris DP1400 combines data converter ASIC technology with a high level of component integration for significantly reduced power consumption of less than 15W. It can be used in all standard PCI bus slots, whether long or short, and is ideal for a variety of test applications, including semiconductor component test, hard disk drive production test and industrial non-destructive testing.

With the optional SAR mode, the on-board memory is separated into multiple buffers. As data is acquired into one buffer, another can be read out through the 32-bit/64MHz PCI at up to 250MB/s. In applications where the total data rate of the acquisition is below the PCI data bandwidth, the Acqiris DP1400 with SAR mode can acquire continuously, missing zero events.

The 8-bit, dual-channel DP1400 features an analog front-end mezzanine containing both signal conditioning and high-speed analog-to-digital converter (ADC) components. Both inputs provide an AC- and DC-coupled digitizing channel with 50¦¸ input impedance. The real-time sampling rate of up to 1GS/s on each channel can be increased up to 2GS/s real-time sampling in single channel mode by interleaving the ADCs. The standard 256 kpoints of onboard memory can be segmented for burst mode acquisitions with an impressive 350ns of intersegment dead time.

When more than two data-acquisition channels are required, the Acqiris DP1400 digitizers can be synchronized using the 2GHz auto-synchronization bus (AS Bus 2), a proprietary, high-bandwidth bus system to connect multiple digitizers. The AS Bus 2 distributes both the clock and trigger signals among all the digitizers that participate in the system. It allows any digitizer to generate the trigger while the central digitizer acts as the common synchronous clock source.

With software drivers for Windows, Linux, LabViewRT and VxWorks as well as application code examples for MATLAB, C++, VisualBasic, LabView and LabWindows, the Acqiris DP1400 easily integrates into existing measurement systems. The flexibility of the driver means that, with minimum software adjustments, any Acqiris digitizer can be exchanged, replaced or upgraded with the latest high-speed Acqiris digitizer.

Click here for more information on the Acqiris product line
Agilent Technologies