Spectrum Brands MI.61XX manual

SPECTRUM SYSTEMENTWICKLUNG MICROELE CTRONIC GMBH · AHRENSFELDER WEG 13-17 · 22927 GROSSHANSDORF · GERMANY PHONE: +49 (0)4102-6956 -0 · FAX: +49 (0)4102 -6956-66 · E-MA IL: info@spec. de · INTERNET: http://www. spec.de MI.61xx fast 8 bit arbitrary wav eform generator D/A converter bo ard for PCI bus Hardware Manual Driver Manual English versio[...]

(c) SPECTRUM SYSTEMENTWICKLUNG MICR OELECTRONIC GMBH AHRENSFELDER WEG 13-17, 22927 GROSSHANSDORF, GERM ANY SBench is a registered trademark of Spectr um Systementwic klung Microelectronic G mbH. Microsoft, Visual C++, Visual Basic, Windows, Windows 98, Windows NT, Win dow 2000 and Windows XP are tradenarks/registered trademarks of Microsoft Corpora[...]

3 Introduction .................................... ..................................... ............................. ............. .... 6 Preface ............................................................................................................ ................................................................... 6 General Information ..[...]

4 Programming the Board ......................... .................................... .................................... . 36 Overview .................. ............................................................................................................. ........................................... 36 Register tables ....................[...]

5 Option Gated Replay ........ .................................... ..................................... ...................... 63 Output modes ............ ....................................................................................... ................................................................. 63 Standard Mode .....................[...]

6 MI.61xx Manual Preface Introduction Introduction Preface This manual provides detailed information on the hardware featur es of your Spectrum instrumentation boar d. This information inc ludes tech- nical data, specifications, block diagram and a connector description. In addition, this guide takes you thr ough the process of installi ng your boa[...]

Introduction Different models of the MI.61xx series (c) Spectrum GmbH 7 Different models of the MI.61xx series The following overwiew shows the different available models of th e MI.61xx series. They differ in th e number mounted generation modules and the number of available channels. You can also see the model dependant allocation of the output c[...]

8 MI.61xx Manual Additional options Introduction Additional options Extra I/O (Opti on -XMF) With this simple-to-use enhancem ent it is possible to control a wide range of external instruments or other equipment. Therefore you have 24 digital I/O and the 4 analog outputs available. The extra I/O option is useful if an external amplifier should be c[...]

Introduction Additional options (c) Spectrum GmbH 9 Starhub The star hub module allows the syn- chronisation of up to 16 MI boards. It is possible to synchronise boards of the same type with each other as well as different types. The module acts as a star hub for clock and trigger signals. Each board is connected with a small ca- ble of the same le[...]

10 MI.61xx Manual The Spectrum type plate Introduction The Spectrum type plate The Spectrum type plate, which consists of the follo wing components, can be found on all of our boards. The board type, consisting of the two lette rs describing the bus (in this case MI for the PCI bus) an d the model number. The size of the on-board installed memo ry [...]

Introduction Hardware information (c) Spectrum GmbH 11 Hardware information Block diagram Technical Data Resolution 8 Bit Dimension 312 mm x 107 mm Integral linearity (DAC) ± 1.5 LSB typ. Width (Sta ndard) 1 full size slot Differential l inearity (DAC) ± 1.0 LSB typ. Width (with star hub option) 2 full size slots Output resistance < 1 Ohm Anal[...]

12 MI.61xx Manual Hardware information Introduction Dynamic Parameters Dynamic parameter s are measured at ± 1 V output level and 50 Ohm termination with a spec trum analyser . The samplerate selected is the max imum possible samplerate . Signal fre- quency is equal to the cut-off frequency of the filter. SNR and RMS noise para meters may differ d[...]

Hardware Installation System Requirements (c) Spectrum GmbH 13 Hardware Installation System Requirements All Spectrum MI.xxxx instrumen tat ion boards are compliant to the PCI standard and require in genera l one fr ee full length slot. Depending on the installed options additional free slots can be necessary. Warnings ESD Precautions The boards of[...]

14 MI.61xx Manual Installing the board in the system Hardware Installation Installing a board wi th digital inputs/out puts Before installing the board you first need to unscrew and remove the dedicated blind-br ackets usually mounted to cover unused s lots of your PC. Please keep the screws in reach to fa sten your Spectrum board and the extra bra[...]

Hardware Installation Installing the board in the system (c) Spectrum GmbH 15 Installing multiple boa rds synchronized b y starhub Hooking up the boards Before mounting several synchronized boards for a multi channel system into the PC yo u can hook up the boar ds with their s ynchr onization cables first. If there is enough space in your computer?[...]

16 MI.61xx Manual Installing the board in the system Hardware Installation Installing multip le synchronized boards Hooking up the boards Before mounting several synchronized boards for a multi channel system into the PC you can hook up the bo ards with the synchron ization cable first. If there is enough space in your computer’s case (e.g. a big[...]

Software Driver Installation Interrupt Sharing (c) Spectrum GmbH 17 Software Driver Installation Before using the board a driver must be installed that matches th e operating system. The installati on is done in different ways depending o n the used operating system. The driver that is on CD supports all boards of the MI, MC and MX series. That mea[...]

18 MI.61xx Manual Windows 98 Software Driver Installation Windows 98 Installation When installing the board in a Win- dows 98 system the Spectrum board will be recognized automatically on the next start-up. The system offers the direct installa- tion of a driver for the board. Let Windows search automatically for the best driver for your system. Se[...]

Software Driver Installation Windows 98 (c) Spectrum GmbH 19 After clicking the driver info button the detailed vers ion information of the driver is shown. In the case of a support question this information must be pr esented together with the board’s serial number to the support team to help finding a fast solution. Driver - Update If a new dri[...]

20 MI.61xx Manual Windows 2000 Software Driver Installation Windows 2000 Installation When installing the board in a Windows 2000 system the Spectrum board will be rec- ognized automatically on the next start-u p. The system offers the direct in- stallation of a driver for the board. Let Windows search automa- tically for the best driver for your s[...]

Software Driver Installation Windows 2000 (c) Spectrum GmbH 21 Driver - Update If a new driver version should be installe d no Spectrum board is allowed to be in us e by any software. So please stop and exit all software that could access the boards. A new driver version is direct- ly installed from the device manager. Therefore please open the pro[...]

22 MI.61xx Manual Windows XP Software Driver Installation Windows XP Installation When installing the board in a Windows XP system the Spectrum board will be rec- ognized automatically on the next start-up. The system offers the direct instal lation of a driver for the boa rd. Do not let Windows automatically search for the best driver, becau- se s[...]

Software Driver Installation Windows XP (c) Spectrum GmbH 23 On the property page Windows XP shows the dat e and the version of the installed driver. After clicking the driver details button the detailed version inform ation of the driver is shown. In the case of a support question this inform ation must be presented together with the board’s ser[...]

24 MI.61xx Manual Windows NT Software Driver Installation Windows NT Installation Under Windows NT the Spectr um dri ver mu st be i n- stalled manually. The driver is found on CD in the directory InstallWinNTDrv. Please start the „Setup.exe“ pro- gram. The installation is per- formed totally automatically, simply click on the „Next“ butto[...]

Software Driver Installation Linux (c) Spectrum GmbH 25 Linux Overview The Spectrum boards are delivered with drivers for linux. It is necessary to install them manual ly following th e steps explaine d afterwards. The linux drivers can be found on CD in the directory /Driver/linu x . As linux is an open source operating sy stem there are seve ral [...]

26 MI.61xx Manual Linux Software Driver Installation Installing the device You connect a device to the driver with the mknod command. The ma jor number is the number of the driver as shown in the last st ep, the minor number is the index of the board starting with 0. This step must only be done once for the system where the boards are in stalled in[...]

Software Software Overview (c) Spectrum GmbH 27 Software This chapter gives you an overview about the structure of the dr ivers and the software, where to find and how to use the exa mples. It detailed shows how the drivers are included under di fferent programm ing languages and where the differences are when callin g the driver functions from dif[...]

28 MI.61xx Manual C/C++ Driver Interface Software C/C++ Driver Interface C/C++ is the main programming language for which the drivers have been build up. Theref ore the interface to C/C++ is the best m atch . All the small examples of the manual showing different parts of the hard ware programming are done with C. Header fil es The basic task befor[...]

Software C/C++ Driver Interface (c) Spectrum GmbH 29 Other Windows C/C++ compilers Include Driver To access the driver, the driver functions must be loaded from the driver dll. This can be easily done by standard windows func tions. There is one example in the directory /Examples/ other that shows the process. After loading the functions from the d[...]

30 MI.61xx Manual C/C++ Driver Interface Software Function SpcSetPa ram All hardware settings are based on software registers that can be set by the function SpcSetParam. This function sets a registe r to a defined value or executes a command. The board must first be initialized. The available software registers for the driver are listed i n the bo[...]

Software C/C++ Driver Interface (c) Spectrum GmbH 31 Under Linux the additional parameter nBytesPe rSample must be used for this function. For all boards with 8 bit resolution the p arameter is „1“, for all boards with 12, 14 or 16 bit resolution this paramet er has to be „2“. Under Linux the value „hDrv“ must contain th e handle that w[...]

32 MI.61xx Manual Delphi (Pascal) Programming Interface Software Delphi (Pascal) Pr ogramming Interface Type definiti on All Spectrum driver functions are using pr e-defined variable types to cover different operating systems and to use the same dri ver interface for all programming languages. Unde r Delphi it is nec essary to define these types on[...]

Software Delphi (Pascal) Programming Interface (c) Spectrum GmbH 33 This function is only available on generator or i/o boar ds. The function is not available on acquisition boards. Function SpcGetData Reads data from the board from a specific me mo ry channel. The board must first be init ialize d. The value „nr“ contains the inde x of the boa[...]

34 MI.61xx Manual Visual Basic Programming Interface Software Visual Basic Prog ramming Interfa ce The Spectrum boards can be used together with Microsoft Visual Ba sic as well as with Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications. T his allows per example the direct access of the hardwa re from within Microsoft Ex cel. The interface betw een th e progra[...]

Software Visual Basic Programming Interface (c) Spectrum GmbH 35 Function SpcGetParam The function SpcGetParam reads out software registers or status information. The board must first be initialized. The available software re- gisters for the driver are listed in the board specific part of th e documentation below. The value „nr“ contains the i[...]

36 MI.61xx Manual Overview Programming the Board Programming the Board Overview The following chapters show you in detail how to program the different aspects of the board. For every topic there’s a small ex ample. For the examples we focussed on Visual C++. Ho wever as shown in the last chapter the differences in programming the board under dif [...]

Programming the Board Initialization (c) Spectrum GmbH 37 This means as a result that it is not nece ssary to check each driver call for an error but to check for an error before the boa rd is started to see whether all settings ha ve been vali d. By reading all the error information one can easily examine wher e the error occure d. The following t[...]

38 MI.61xx Manual Initialization Programming the Board Hardware versi on Since all of the MI, MC and MX boards from Spectrum are modular boards, they consis t of one base board and one or two (only PCI and CompactPCI) piggy-back modules. This register SPC_PCIVERSION gi ves information about the revision of either the base board and the mo- dules. N[...]

Programming the Board Initialization (c) Spectrum GmbH 39 Installed features and options The SPC_PCIFEATURES register informs you about the options, that are installed on the b oard. If you want to know about one opti on being installed or not, you need to read out the 32 bit value and mask the interesting bit. The following example demonstrates ho[...]

40 MI.61xx Manual Powerdown and reset Programming the Board Example program for the board initialization The following example is only an exerpt to give you an idea on how easy it is to initialize a Spectrum board. Powerdown and reset Every Spectrum board can be set to powerdown mode by software. In this mode the board is theref ore consuming less [...]

Analog Outputs Channel Selection (c) Spectrum GmbH 41 Analog Outputs Channel Selection One key setting that influences all other possible settings is th e channel enable register. An unique feature of the Spectrum b oards is the possibility to program the number of channels you want to use. All on-board memory ca n then be used by these activated c[...]

42 MI.61xx Manual Setting up the outputs Analog Outputs Setting up the outputs Output Amplifie rs This arbitrary waveform generator board uses separate output am- plifiers for each channel. This give s you the possibility to seperately set up the channel outputs to best suit your application The output amplifiers can easily be set by the correspond[...]

Analog Outputs Setting up the outputs (c) Spectrum GmbH 43 Maximum Output Range In order not to generate distorted signals it is nec- essary to keep the total output range as a combina- tion of the set amplitude and offset within a range of ±3000 mV. If this limit is exceeded a heavy distorted signal will be seen and the signals wave form will be [...]

44 MI.61xx Manual General description Standard generation modes Standard generation modes General description The generated data is replayed from the on- boa rd memory. These modes allows generating waveforms at very high sample rates with out the need to transfer the data into the board’s on-board memory at high speed. These modes are running to[...]

Standard generation modes Programming (c) Spectrum GmbH 45 Maximum memsize How to read this table: If you have installed the standard amou nt of 8 MSample on your 6111 board and you want to replay all fo ur channels, you have a to tal maximu m memory of 16 MSample * 1/4 = 4 MSample per channel for your data. The maximum settings for the post counte[...]

46 MI.61xx Manual Programming Standard generation modes Starting without interrupt (classic mode) Command register In this mode the board is started by writing the SPC_START valu e to the command register. All settings like for example the siz e of memory and postcounter, the number of activated chan nels and the trigger settings must have been pro[...]

Standard generation modes Programming (c) Spectrum GmbH 47 To prevent the program from this deadlock, a second task must be used which can send the SPC_STOP signal to stop the board. Ano ther possibility, that does not require the need of a second task is to define a timeout value. This is the easiest and safest way to use the interrupt driven mode[...]

48 MI.61xx Manual Programming Standard generation modes Standard mode Writing data to the memory is really easy, if a replay mode is used, that stores no n multiplexed data in the dedicated memory c hannels. The next example shows, how to write the data before replaying tw o channels without multiplexing to both memory channels. If you use two chan[...]

FIFO Mode Overview (c) Spectrum GmbH 49 FIFO Mode Overview General Information The FIFO mode allows to record data continuously and trans- fer it online to the PC (acquisi tion boards) or allows to write data continuously from the PC to the board (generation boards). Therefore the on-board memory of the board is used as a continuous buffer. On the [...]

50 MI.61xx Manual Programming FIFO Mode When using FIFO mode together with one of the options that allow to have gaps in the generation like Multiple Replay or Gated R eplay one can even run the board with higher s ample rates. It just has to be sure that the average sample rate (calculated with gene ratio n time and gap) does not exceed the above [...]

FIFO Mode Programming (c) Spectrum GmbH 51 Analog acquisition or generation boards Digital I/O (701x or 702x ) or pattern generator boards (72xx) Digital I/O board 7005 only We at Spectrum achieved best results when programming the buffer leng th to a number of samples that can hold approximately 100 ms of data. However if going to the limit of the[...]

52 MI.61xx Manual Programming FIFO Mode FIFO mode In normal applications the FIFO mode will run in a loop and process one buffer after the other. There are a few special command s and regi- sters for the FIFO mode: The start command and the wait command both wa it for the signal from the driver that th e next buffer has to be processed. This signal[...]

FIFO Mode Programming (c) Spectrum GmbH 53 The samples are re-named for better readability. A0 is samp le 0 of channel 0, C4 is sample 4 of channel 2, ... The following example shows how to sort the channel data when us ing 4 channels in FIFO mode: Sample for mat The sample format in FIFO mode does not differ from the one of the standard (non FIFO)[...]

54 MI.61xx Manual Overview Clock generation Clock generation Overview The Spectrum boards offer a wide variety of different clock mode s to match all the customers need s. All the clock modes are des cribed in detail with programming examples belo w. This chapter simply gives you an overview which clock mode to select: Standard internal sample rate[...]

Clock generation Internally generated sample rate (c) Spectrum GmbH 55 Maximum internal sample rate in MS/s normal (non FIFO) mode Maximum internal sample rate in MS/s in FIFO mode Using plain quartz with no PLL In some cases it is useful for the application not to have the on-board PLL activated. Although the PLL used on the Spectrum boards is a l[...]

56 MI.61xx Manual Internally generated sample rate Clock generation Direct external cl ock An external clock can be fed in on the ex ternal clock connector of the board. This ca n be any clock, that matches the specifica tion of the board. The external clock signal can be used to synchronize the board on a system clock or to feed in an exact matchi[...]

Clock generation Internally generated sample rate (c) Spectrum GmbH 57 Example: External cloc k with divide r The extra clock divider can be used to divide an external fed in clock by a fixed value. The exte rnal clock must be > 1 MS/s. T his divided clock is used as a sample clock for the board. Available divider values The clock divider is als[...]

58 MI.61xx Manual General Description Trigger modes and appendant registers Trigger modes and appendant registers General Description Concerning the trigger modes of th e Spectrum MI, MC and MX D/ A boards, you can choose between three external TTL trigger modes and one internal software trigger. This chapt er is about to explain the different trig[...]

Trigger modes and appendant registers External TTL trigger (c) Spectrum GmbH 59 As the trigger connector is used as an input, y ou can decide wh ether the input is 50 Ohm terminated or not. If you enable th e t ermination, please make sure, that your trigger source is capable to delive r the desired current. If termination is disabled, the input is[...]

60 MI.61xx Manual External TTL trigger Trigger modes and appendant registers Positive and negative TTL trigger This mode is for detecting the ri sing and falling edges of an ex- ternal TTL signal. The board will trig ger on the first rising or falling edge that is detected after starting the board. The next triggere- vent will then be detected, if [...]

Option Multiple Replay Output modes (c) Spectrum GmbH 61 Option Multiple Replay The option Multiple Replay allows the gene ration of data blocks with multiple tri gger events without restarting the hardware. The on-board memory will be divided into several segments of the same size . Each segment will be replayed when a trigger event occures. Outpu[...]

62 MI.61xx Manual Trigger mode s Option Multiple Replay Resulting star t delays The following example shows how to set up the board f or Multiple Replay in standard mode. The se tup would be similar in FIFO mo de, but the memsize register would not be used. Sample rate Output Mode Activated channels external TTL trigger ext. TTL trigger with activa[...]

Option Gated Replay Output modes (c) Spectrum GmbH 63 Option Gated Replay The option Gated Replay allows the data generation controlled by an external gate signal. Data will only be output, if the prog ramme d gate condition is true. Output modes Standard Mode Data will be replayed as long as the gate signal fu lfills the gate condition that has ha[...]

64 MI.61xx Manual Example program Option Gated Replay Due to the structure of the on-board memory there is another delay at the end of the gate interval. Internally a gate-end signal can only be recognized at an eight samples alignment. So depending on what time your external gate signal will leave the programmed gate condition it might hap- pen th[...]

Option Extra I/O Digital I/Os (c) Spectrum GmbH 65 Option Extra I/O Digital I/Os With this simple-to-use enhancement it is possible to control a wide range of external ins trume nts or other equipment. Therefor e you have several digital I/Os and the 4 analog outp uts available. All extra I/O lines are comp letely independent from the board’s fun[...]

66 MI.61xx Manual Analog Outputs Option Extra I/O Analog Outputs In addition to the digital I/Os there are fo ur analog outputs available. These output s are directly programmed with the voltage values i n mV. As the analog outputs are driven by a 12 bit DAC, the output vo ltage can be set in a ste psize of 5 mV. The table below shows th e registe [...]

Synchronization (Option) The different synchronization options (c) Spectrum GmbH 67 Synchronization (Option) This option allows the connection of multip le boards to generate a multi-channel syst em. It is possible to synchronize multiple Spectrum boards of the same type as well as different board types. Therefore th e synchronized boards must be l[...]

68 MI.61xx Manual The setup order for the different synchr onization options Synchronization (Option) When the boards are synchronized by the option starhub there will be no delay between the connected boards. This is achie- ved as all boards, including the one the starhub module is mounted on, are connected to th e starhub with cables of the same [...]

Synchronization (Option) The setup order for the different synchronization options (c) Spectrum GmbH 69 (3) Define the board(s) for trigger master At least one board must be set as the trigger master to get sync hronization running. Every one of the synchronized boards can b e programmed for beeing the trigger master device. Example of board #2 set[...]

70 MI.61xx Manual The setup order for the different synchr onization options Synchronization (Option) After you have excluded one or more of th e installed boards from the synchronization tr igger it is possible to change the trigg ermodes of these boards. So only all the boards that should work synchronously mu st be set up for the same tr igger m[...]

Synchronization (Option) The setup order for the different synchronization options (c) Spectrum GmbH 71 (9) Start all of the trigger master boards After having armed the synchronized boar ds, you must start all of the boards, that are defined as trigger masters. For details on how to start the board in the different modes in standard mode (non FIFO[...]

72 MI.61xx Manual The setup order for the different synchr onization options Synchronization (Option) Setup synchronizati on for use with FIFO mode and eq ually clocked boa rds Most of the steps are similar to the setup routine for standard synchronization mentioned before. In this passage only the diff erences between the two modes are shown. Plea[...]

Synchronization (Option) The setup order for the different synchronization options (c) Spectrum GmbH 73 (8) Start all of the trigger slave boards After having armed the synchronized boards, you must start all of the boards, that are defined as trigger slaves first. This is done with the FIFOSTART command. Remember that the FIFO mode is allways inte[...]

74 MI.61xx Manual The setup order for the different synchr onization options Synchronization (Option) Additions for syn chronizing different bo ards General information Spectrum boards with different speed gr ades, different number of channels or even just differen t clock settings for the same ty pes of boards can be synchronized as well. To get t[...]

Synchronization (Option) The setup order for the different synchronization options (c) Spectrum GmbH 75 Setting up the clock divider The clock divider can easily be set by the following register. Plea se keep in mind that the divider mu st be set for every synch ronized board to have synchronization working correctly. For more details on the board?[...]

76 MI.61xx Manual The setup order for the different synchr onization options Synchronization (Option) Additions for equal boards with differ ent sample rates In addition to the possibility of synchroniz ing different types of boards to one synchron ous sample rate it can be also useful in some cases to synchronize boards of the same type, with one [...]

Appendix Error Codes (c) Spectrum GmbH 77 Appendix Error Codes The following error codes could occur when a driver function has been called. Please check carefully the allow ed setup for the register and change the settings to run the program. error name value (hex) value (dec.) error description ERR_OK 0h 0 Execution OK, no error . ERR_INIT 1h 1 T[...]

78 MI.61xx Manual Pin assignment of the multipin conn ector Pin assignment of the multipin connector The 40 lead multipin connector is the main connecto r for all of Spectrum’s digital boards and is addi- tionally used for different options, l ike “Extra I/O“ or the additional digital inpu ts (on analog acquisition boards only) or additional [...]

Pin assignment of the internal multipin connector (c) Spectrum GmbH 79 Pin assignment of the in ternal multipin connector The 26 lead internal connector is used for the option “Extra I/O“ (-XIO) without the external connector described before. The connector mentioned here is m ounted on the bottom side of the Extra I/O modu- le. Extra I/O with [...]