Introduction; About The Pci E Series - National Instruments DAQ PCI E Series User Manual

Introduction

About the PCI E Series

© National Instruments Corporation
This chapter describes the PCI E Series boards, lists what you need to
get started, describes the optional software and optional equipment, and
explains how to unpack your PCI E Series board.
Thank you for buying a National Instruments PCI E Series board. The
PCI E Series boards are completely Plug and Play, multifunction
analog, digital, and timing I/O boards for PCI bus computers. This
family of boards features 12-bit and 16-bit ADCs with 16 and 64 analog
inputs, 12-bit and 16-bit DACs with voltage outputs, eight lines of
TTL-compatible digital I/O, and two 24-bit counter/timers for timing
I/O. Because the PCI E Series boards have no DIP switches, jumpers,
or potentiometers, they are easily software-configured and calibrated.
The PCI E Series boards are completely switchless and jumperless data
acquisition (DAQ) boards for the PCI bus. This feature is made possible
by the National Instruments MITE bus interface chip that connects the
board to the PCI I/O bus. The MITE implements the PCI Local Bus
Specification so that the interrupts and base memory addresses are all
software configured.
The PCI E Series boards use the National Instruments DAQ-STC
system timing controller for time-related functions. The DAQ-STC
consists of three timing groups that control analog input, analog output,
and general-purpose counter/timer functions. These groups include a
total of seven 24-bit and three 16-bit counters and a maximum timing
resolution of 50 ns. The DAQ-STC makes possible such applications as
buffered pulse generation, equivalent time sampling, and seamlessly
changing the sampling rate.
Often with DAQ boards, you cannot easily synchronize several
measurement functions to a common trigger or timing event. The PCI E
Series boards have the Real-Time System Integration (RTSI) bus to
solve this problem. The RTSI bus consists of our RTSI bus interface and
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PCI E Series User Manual