DN2.445-02 | Spectrum

General Information

The digitizerNETBOX DN2.44x series allows recording of one, two, four or eight synchronous channels with sampling rates of 130 MS/s up to 500 MS/s. These products offer outstanding A/D features in resolution, bandwidth and speed as a remote instrument. The powerful A/D amplifier section offers six different input ranges, two input paths, AC/DC coupling and noise reduction filters

The digitizerNETBOX and generatorNETBOX offer a powerful GBit Ethernet connection and are fully LXI compatible. The netbox can be used as tabletop instrument or 19" rack mount operation. It can be connected anywhere in your LAN or directly point-to-point with your Laptop/Workstation. A full option package and software package including SBench 6 Professional is included. The first data acquisition can be done within minutes: connect power + ethernet + signals, swicth on, install software on client PC, detect the digitizerNETBOX/generatorNETBOX with Discovery, start SBench 6, do the first acquisition!

ABA Mode

The optional ABA mode combines slow continuous data recording with fast acquisition on trigger events. The ABA mode works like a slow data logger combined with a fast digitizer. The exact position of the trigger events is stored as timestamps in an extra memory.

The FIFO mode is designed for continuous data transfer between the digitizerNETBOX and the host PC. The transfer speed is depending on the Ethernet connection between box and host and is in the region of 40 MB/s to 60 MB/s. The control of the data stream is done automatically by the driver on interrupt request. The complete installed on-board memory is used for buffer data, making the continuous streaming extremely reliable.

Block Average (Optional)

The Block Average Module improves the fidelity of noisy repetitive signals. Multiple repetitive acquisitions with very small dead-time are accumulated and averaged. Random noise is reduced by the averaging process improving the visibility of the repetitive signal.

Block Statistics (Optional)

The Block Statistics and Peak Detect Module implements a widely used data analysis and reduction technology in hardware. Each block is scanned for minimum and maximum peak and a summary including minimum, maximum, average, timestamps and position information is stored in memory.

Boxcar Average

The Boxcar averaging function smooths out high frequency noise to give a clear signal. It is most useful in situations where signals have been oversampled and it can be used to increase vertical resolution, lower noise and improve dynamic characteristics such as signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and spurious free dynamic range (SFDR). It uses a mathematical signal processing function to effectively recalculate the vertical value of each acquired data point by averaging it with adjacent sample points.

Ring buffer mode

The ring buffer mode is the standard mode of all acquisition boards. Data is written in a ring memory of the board until a trigger event is detected. After the event the posttrigger values are recorded. Because of this continuously recording into a ring buffer there are also samples prior to the trigger event visible: Pretrigger = Memsize - Posttrigger.

The data acquisition boards offer a wide variety of trigger modes. Besides the standard signal checking for level and edge as known from oscilloscopes it's also possible to define a window trigger. Trigger conditions can be combined with logical conjunctions like OR to adopt to different application scenarios.

All boards can be triggered using a separate external trigger signal with a two level programmable window comparator and a second separate external trigger with a single programmable level comparator. It's possible to use positive or negative edge. An internally recognized trigger event can - when activated by software - be routed to a multi purpose i/o connector to start external instruments.

Gated Sampling

The Gated Sampling option allows data recording controlled by an external gate signal. Data is only recorded if the gate signal has a programmed level. In addition a pre-area before start of the gate signal as well as a post area after end of the gate signal can be acquired. The number of gate segments is only limited by the used memory and is unlimited when using FIFO mode.

Multiple Recording

The Multiple Recording option allows the recording of several trigger events with an extremely short re-arming time. The hardware doesn't need to be restarted in between. The on-board memory is divided in several segments of the same size. Each of them is filled with data if a trigger event occurs. Pre- and posttrigger of the segments can be programmed. The number of acquired segments is only limited by the used memory and is unlimited when using FIFO mode.

The timestamp option writes the time positions of the trigger events in an extra memory. The timestamps are relative to the start of recording, a defined zero time, externally synchronized to a radio clock, or a GPS receiver. With this option acquisitions of systems on different locations can be set in a precise time relation.

The internal sampling clock of the card is generated using a high precision PLL. This powerful device allows to select the sampling rate with a fine step size making it possible to perfectly adopt to different measurement tasks. Most other cards on the market only allow the setup of fixed sampling rates like 100 MS/s, 50 MS/s, 25 MS/s, 10 MS/s, ... without any possibility to set the sampling rate to any value in between.

The option to use a precise external reference clock (normally 10 MHz) is necessary to synchronize the board for high-quality measurements with external equipment (like a signal source). It's also possible to enhance the quality of the sampling clock in this way. The driver automatically generates the requested sampling clock from the fed in reference clock.

Each analog channel contains a software selectable AC/DC coupling. When using the DC coupling all frequency parts of the signal including the DC offset are acquired. Selecting the AC coupling will only acquire frequency parts of the signal that are above a defined minimum bandwidth.

The on-board calibration can be run on user request and calibrates the amplifier against a dedicated internal high precision calibration source. After this calibration data is stored permanently in an on-board EEPROM and is automatically used for further acquisitions.

The analog inputs can be adapted to real world signals using a wide variety of settings that are individual for each channel. By using software commands the input termination can be changed between 50 Ohm and 1 MOhm and one can select an input range matching the real world signal.

For each of the analog channels the user has the choice between two analog input paths, both offering the highest flexibility when it comes to input ranges. The "Buffered" path has 1 MOhm termination that allows to connect standard oscilloscope probes to the card. The "HF" path on the other hand provides the highest bandwidth and the best signal integrity having a fixed 50 Ohm termination.

Synchronous Sampling

All acquisition cards from Spectrum are built with a completely synchronous design. Every channel has its own independent input amplifier as well as an independent ADC allowing to program all input channel related settings individually for each channel.

Each analog channel contains a software selectable low-pass filter to limit the input bandwidth. Reducing the analog input bandwidth results in a lower total noise and can be usefull especially with low voltage input signals.

All M4i cards offer three universal multi purpose I/O lines, which can be separately programmed as either input or output. When used as outputs, these lines can be used to output card status signals like trigger-armed or to output the trigger to synchronize external equipment.

3rd Party Drivers

A lot of third-party products are supported by the Spectrum driver. Choose between LabVIEW, MATLAB, LabWindows/CVI and IVI. All drivers come with examples and detailed documentation.

Embedded Server (Optional)

The option turns the digitizerNETBOX in a powerful PC that allows to run own programs on a small and remote data acquisition system. The digitizerNETBOX is enhanced by more memory, a powerful CPU, a freely accessable internal SSD and a remote software development access method (SSH)

Programming Examples

Programming examples for C++, Delphi, Visual Basic, C#, J#, VB.Net, Java, Python and LabWindows/CVI are delivered with the driver. Due to the simple interface of the driver, the integration in other programming languages or special measurement software is an easy task.

The digitizerNETBOX can be remotely accessed from any current Windows (starting with Windows XP) 32 bit or 64 bit system or Linux (starting with Kernel 2.6) 32 bit or 64 bit system by Ethernet. The remote access is done in the very exact programming like a locally installed product allowing to use any of the supported software packages.

SBench6

SBench 6 is a powerful and intuitive interactive measurement software. Besides the possibility to commence the measuring task immediately, without programming, SBench 6 combines the setup of hardware, data display, oscilloscope, transient recorder, waveform generator, analyzing functions, import and export functions under one easy-to-use interface.