Strategic Test Announces PCI Express Waveform Generators

By DE Editors

Strategic Test (Woburn, MA) recently announced the availability of PCI Express-based Arbitrary Waveform Generator (AWG) boards. With synchronous multi-channel capability, the AWG boards are designed for signal-processing applications that include I&Q signal generation, RADAR system development, communications testing, laser positioning, and HDTV signal generation.

There are four new AWG boards in the UF2e-6030 series: UF2e-6030 (one channel, 125 MSps maximum), UF2e-6031 (two channels, 125 MSps per channel), and two configurations of the UF2e-6034 (four channels, 125 MSps on two channels, or 60 MSps maximum on four channels).  Each channel has its own 14-bit digital-to-analog converter to ensure synchronous output and a choice of three reconstruction filters (5th and 4th order Butterworth lowpass) giving bandwidths of 25MHz, 5MHz, or 500kHz. A no-filter option is also software-selectable.

Typical dynamic specifications include signal-to-noise ratio of better than 61 dB, total harmonic distortion of less than 71.5 dB, and spurious-free dynamic range greater than 72 dB.

As with all UltraFast instrument boards, the sampling clock design consisting of a hardware divider and PLL allows flexibility to the user in defining the optimum sampling rate. In the case of the UF2e-6000 boards, the output rate can be freely selected between 1 kSps and the maximum rate of DAC.

The board can be equipped with a second user-selected quartz crystal oscillator for applications that require a highly accurate specific output rate.

The boards are supplied with 32 MS of signal memory as standard, but it can be expanded to 2 GS through a proprietary onboard DIMM module.

You can view more detailed information on the company website at strategic-test.com.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company's website.