Tektronix PXIe-5186 digitiser

National Instruments has released what it claims is the highest bandwidth PXI digitiser, complementing the suite of instrumentation available in PXI.

Co-developed with Tektronix, the PXIe-5186 digitiser employs Tektronix, Enabling Technology to achieve up to 5 GHz bandwidth and 12.5 GSps sample rates.

The company also announced the PXIe-5185, which delivers 3 GHz bandwidth along with 12.5 GSps sample rate.

Both digitisers are part of the company’s PXI-based hardware and software platform, that provides optimised performance for automated tests.

Tektronix oscilloscope ASICs in the digitisers provide the foundation for high-speed signal acquisition with low noise and high linearity and are based on the IBM 7HP SiGe process.

The low 500 fs RMS integrated jitter of the digitisers results in a 5.5 effective number of bits at 5 GHz.

NI technology delivers high-data throughput for faster test execution and precision multimodule timing and synchronisation for building high-channel-count, integrated test systems.

Designed for the 3U PXI Express platform, the digitisers can stream at rates to 700 MBps and synchronise channels on multiple modules to within 160 ps resolution. These capabilities make the digitisers suitable for applications such as automated production test, semiconductor ATE and high-energy physics measurement systems.

The devices work with LabVIEW graphical design software for instrument control and automation, the LabWindows/CVI ANSI C software development environment and Microsoft Visual Studio .NET development tools.

Engineers can program the digitisers using the SCOPE instrument driver or the LabVIEW jitter analysis toolkit, which offers a library of functions optimised for high-throughput, jitter, eye diagram and phase noise measurements.