High-speed analog input card

Analog-to-digital converter offers four channels of 12-bit data acquisition.

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The Industrial Automation Group of Advantech has introduced its PCIe-1744, a 4-channel, 12-bit, ultra-high speed analog data acquisition card with PCI express interface. Advantech says the new design is capable of handling analog-to-digital sampling simultaneously and independently on all four channels. The unit features multiple trigger modes and a 30 MHz sampling rate using independent A/D converters for each of the four analog input channels. Large sample buffers per channel help ensure all readings are securely captured.

PCIe, unlike previous PC expansion standards, is structured around point-to-point serial links, a pair of which (one in each direction) make up a lane, rather than a shared parallel bus. These lanes are routed by a hub on the main-board acting as a crossbar switch. The company says this dynamic point-to-point behavior allows more than one pair of devices to communicate with each other at the same time. In contrast, older PC interfaces had all devices permanently wired to the same bus, so only one device could send information at a time. This format also allows channel grouping, where multiple lanes are bonded to a single device pair in order to provide higher bandwidth.

Peter Welander, pwelander(at)cfemedia.com
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