New PCIe digitizers combine ultrafast speed, high resolution and market-leading streaming

Outstanding package of 10 GSample/s speed + 12-bit resolution + 12.8 GByte/s streaming

Two new PCIe Digitizer cards from Spectrum Instrumentation combine 10 GS/s sampling rate, 12-bit vertical resolution and market-leading 12.8 GB/s data streaming. The cards boast the highest sampling rate and bandwidth in company history, creating a powerful package for engineers and scientists working with today’s most challenging GHz-range electronic signals. The one-channel M5i.3350-x16 and the two-channel M5i.3357-x16 feature front end circuitry with over 3 GHz bandwidth and up to 16 GB (8 GSamples) on-board memory. They also reach the fastest digitizer data transfer speeds, over PCIe, on the market. Using 16 lane, Gen 3, PCIe technology, data can be streamed over the bus at a staggering 12.8 GB/s. The data can be sent to PC memory for storage, or directly to CPUs and CUDA-based GPUs for customized signal processing and analysis.

With 12-bit resolution, these innovative digitizers offer better dynamic range than most conventional test instruments. For example, they deliver 16 times more resolution than many digital oscilloscopes, which typically use 8-bit analogue to digital converters. The extra resolution allows measurements to be made with better signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and improved accuracy and precision.

The front-end circuitry offers programmable full-scale ranges from ±200 mV to ±2.5 V together with variable offset. Acquisitions can be made in single-shot or multiple-waveform recording modes. To help capture the most elusive signals, a host of trigger modes are available for use on the channels or external trigger inputs. The modes include conventional edge triggering, along with more sophisticated methods such as Window, Re-Arm, Or/And (logical), Software and Delay.

The cards can turn almost any PC it into a powerful measurement tool just by installing them in a suitable PCIe slot. This opens the door for anyone wishing to use the latest CPU and GPU hardware for signal processing and analysis.

The new cards come with a 5-year product warranty and all the tools necessary to use them in a PC running either a Windows or Linux operating system. A software development kit (SDK) is provided, so that the cards can be programmed with almost any popular language including C, C++, C#, Delphi, VB.NET, J#, Python, Julia, Java, LabVIEW, and MATLAB. Alternatively, the company offers SBench 6 Professional. This powerful measurement software provides full card control, along with a host of data display, analysis, storage, and documentation capabilities.

A low-cost option, M5i.33xx-spavg, is available for summation averaging using on-board FPGA technology. Averaging reduces unwanted signal noise while enhancing dynamic range and SNR. The cards can average signals at an astonishing rate of up to 15 million events per second, making them one of the fastest signal averaging solutions on the market.