Data Acquisition Computer Boards Specifications

Computer Bus


	Computer Bus
	Your choices are...
	CompactPCI		This is a high performance industrial bus that uses the electrical standards of the PCI bus packaged in a Eurocard. The specifications of the CompactPCI bus were developed and maintained by the PCI Industrial Computers Manufacturers Group (PICMG). It is used extensively in systems that require high speed transfer of data, such as data communication routers and switches, real-time machine control, real-time data acquisition, military systems, etc
	IBM Microchannel		The Microchannel bus was designed by IBM to replace the ISA bus. It is much faster, and is capable of Plug & Play (adding a card to a Microchannel computer does not change the interrupt and DMA settings on the card). These functions are done via software. Microchannel slots are available almost exclusively in IBM's PS/2® line.
	IEEE 1394 (Firewire®)		A companion to USB, IEEE 1394 is a very high-speed serial bus (400 Megabit - 1 Gigabit). It was designed to replace all external high-speed peripheral connections to personal computers, including hard disks, CD-ROM's, DVD's, graphics cards, high-speed scanners, direct video, monitors, etc.
	Industry Pack® Bus (IP)		Industry Pack® is a Mezzanine bus generally used to provide I/O capabilities to general purpose computer systems. It was conceived by Greenspring Computers, who maintain the specification. It has been adopted by a number of CPU manufacturers.
	ISA / EISA		Industry Standard Architecture. ISA is a standard for I/O buses that was set back in 1984 when IBM was the standard. The ISA bus can handle 16-bit data transfers at a clock speed of 8 MHz. It is also capable of handling memory under 16 MB. EISA, or Extended ISA, is an improvement over the ISA bus. It runs at 8 MHz, is capable of 32-bit data transfer, and can access all memory in the system.
	Mac PCI (Nubus)		Peripheral Component Interconnect. A local bus standard developed by the Intel® Corporation. PCI is used on newer versions of Apple's® Macintosh® line. Nubus was the expansion bus for Apple computers from the Macintosh II through the Performa® line.
	MIX Bus		Modular Interface eXtension. The MIX bus is a high performance stacking and communications interface to connect expansion modules to a VMEbus baseboard. The MIX bus supports 32-bit data transfers and 4 GB of memory addressing capability, as well as DMA transfers.
	Multibus (I & II)		Multibus is a modular computer-systems architecture used in embedded applications in telecommunications, medical-devices, manufacturing automation, networking, and other market areas.
	*PC/104 (PC/104-Plus, EBX)*		PC/104 gets its name from the desktop personal computers designed by IBM (PCs), and from the number of pins used to connect the cards together (104). PC/104 cards are much smaller than ISA-bus cards and stack together eliminating the need for a motherboard, back plane, and/or card cage. PC/104-Plus incorporates the PCI bus into the PC/104 form-factor for faster data transfer. EBX (Embedded Board eXpandable) defines a 5.75" x 8" form factor large enough to implement a powerful single-board computer. It supports PC/104 expansion.
	PCI		Peripheral Component Interconnect. PCI is a local bus system designed for high-end computer systems, such as the Pentium®. It transfers 32 or 64 bits of data at a clock speed of 33 MHz. The PCI bus supports 3 to 5 critical peripherals, which are either integrated directly onto the motherboard or added via expansion cards. The PCI bus fully supports cards developed for standard I/O buses.
	PCMCIA (PC Card)		PCMCIA devices (PC Cards) are credit-card-sized peripherals predominantly used in laptop computers. The PCMCIA adapter takes the place of a COM port on a standard bus. The card is plugged into a 68-pin host socket that is connected either to the motherboard or an expansion bus. An adapter then translates the PCMCIA signals into signals usable by the computer's bus.
	PXI Bus		PCI eXtensions for Instrumentation (PXI). This superset of CompactPCI adds timing and triggering functions, imposes requirements for documenting environmental tests, and establishes a standard Windows-based software framework.
	PMC Bus		The PMC Bus is actually a form factor, not a bus -- it is electrically the same as the PCI Bus, but the shape of the card and the bus connectors are different. Designed for rugged implementations, the PMC form factor provides a secure mounting platform for PMC VME mezzanine boards.
	STD Bus		Often referred to as the "Blue Collar Bus" because of its rugged design and small size, the STD Bus was originally designed for factory and industrial environments. It uses 16-bit architecture.
	SUN Sbus		Designed by Sun in 1989, the SBus board was the standard I/O inter-connect for Sun computers, which typically run under the Solaris or SunOS flavor of the UNIX operating system.
	USB		Universal Serial Bus. The 12 Megabit serial bus designed to replace low-to-medium speed peripheral device connections to Personal Computers, including keyboards, mice, modems, printers, joysticks, audio functions, monitor controls, etc.
	VME Bus		VersaModule Eurocard. A 32-bit bus used in industrial, commercial and military applications. VME64 is an expanded version that provides 64-bit data transfer and addressing.
	VXI / MXI Bus		VME eXtensions for Instrumentation. Motorola developed the VME standard, with others, in the late 1970s. A standard for many electronic platforms, it defines electrical and mechanical backplane characteristics.
	Other		Unlisted, specialized, or proprietary configuration.
	Search Logic:		All products with ANY of the selected attributes will be returned as matches. Leaving all boxes unchecked will not limit the search criteria for this question; products with all attribute options will be returned as matches.

Signal Inputs


	DC Voltage Input?
	Search Logic:		"Required" and "Must Not Have" criteria limit returned matches as specified. Products with optional attributes will be returned for either choice.

	DC Current Input?
	Search Logic:		"Required" and "Must Not Have" criteria limit returned matches as specified. Products with optional attributes will be returned for either choice.

	AC Voltage Input?
	Search Logic:		"Required" and "Must Not Have" criteria limit returned matches as specified. Products with optional attributes will be returned for either choice.

	AC Current Input?
	Search Logic:		"Required" and "Must Not Have" criteria limit returned matches as specified. Products with optional attributes will be returned for either choice.

	Frequency Input?		Input for varying frequency, pulse, or other specialized waveform.
	Search Logic:		"Required" and "Must Not Have" criteria limit returned matches as specified. Products with optional attributes will be returned for either choice.

	Charge Input?		Charge is the output of a piezoelectric device. A charge signal typically requires filtering and amplification.
	Search Logic:		"Required" and "Must Not Have" criteria limit returned matches as specified. Products with optional attributes will be returned for either choice.

Sensor Inputs


	Accelerometer Input?		Input specifically for an accelerometer, such as a piezoelectric or current-fed sensor.
	Search Logic:		"Required" and "Must Not Have" criteria limit returned matches as specified. Products with optional attributes will be returned for either choice.

	Thermocouple Input?		Input for a thermocouple or thermocouple series.
	Search Logic:		"Required" and "Must Not Have" criteria limit returned matches as specified. Products with optional attributes will be returned for either choice.

	Thermistor Input?		Input for thermistors and potentiometers handle variable resistance as a function of the process being measured.
	Search Logic:		"Required" and "Must Not Have" criteria limit returned matches as specified. Products with optional attributes will be returned for either choice.

	RTD Input?		Input designed for a resistance temperature detector.
	Search Logic:		"Required" and "Must Not Have" criteria limit returned matches as specified. Products with optional attributes will be returned for either choice.

	Strain Gauge / Bridge?		Input designed for a Wheatstone bridge, in full, half, or quarter bridge configurations. Strain gauges are sensors which commonly utilize Wheatstone bridges.
	Search Logic:		"Required" and "Must Not Have" criteria limit returned matches as specified. Products with optional attributes will be returned for either choice.

	LVDT / RVDT Input?		Input for a Linear (LVDT) or Rotary (RVDT) Variable Differential Transformer.
	Search Logic:		"Required" and "Must Not Have" criteria limit returned matches as specified. Products with optional attributes will be returned for either choice.

Specialized & Other Inputs


	Encoder Input?		Input for an encoder signal such as binary, gray, or BCD.
	Search Logic:		"Required" and "Must Not Have" criteria limit returned matches as specified. Products with optional attributes will be returned for either choice.

	Counter / Tachometer Input?		Input from counters or tachometers are typically one signal per cycle counts.
	Search Logic:		"Required" and "Must Not Have" criteria limit returned matches as specified. Products with optional attributes will be returned for either choice.

	Timer / Clock Input?		Input for any type of time signal.
	Search Logic:		"Required" and "Must Not Have" criteria limit returned matches as specified. Products with optional attributes will be returned for either choice.

	Relay / Switch Input?		Input for a discrete, on/off signal from an exterior device.
	Search Logic:		"Required" and "Must Not Have" criteria limit returned matches as specified. Products with optional attributes will be returned for either choice.

	Other Input?		Unlisted or specialized input.
	Search Logic:		"Required" and "Must Not Have" criteria limit returned matches as specified. Products with optional attributes will be returned for either choice.

Outputs


	Voltage Output?		Variable voltage output such as 0-10V, ±5V, etc.
	Search Logic:		"Required" and "Must Not Have" criteria limit returned matches as specified. Products with optional attributes will be returned for either choice.

	Current Output?		Variable current level output such as 0-20mA, 4-20 mA current loop, etc.
	Search Logic:		"Required" and "Must Not Have" criteria limit returned matches as specified. Products with optional attributes will be returned for either choice.

	Frequency Output?		Output is a frequency or pulse signal such as AM, FM, or PWM monitoring or control.
	Search Logic:		"Required" and "Must Not Have" criteria limit returned matches as specified. Products with optional attributes will be returned for either choice.

	Timer / Counter Output?		Output is a counting or timing of measured events.
	Search Logic:		"Required" and "Must Not Have" criteria limit returned matches as specified. Products with optional attributes will be returned for either choice.

	Relay Output?		Switch type output; contacts are open or closed depending on the state of one or more of the inputs.
	Search Logic:		"Required" and "Must Not Have" criteria limit returned matches as specified. Products with optional attributes will be returned for either choice.

	Resistance / Potentiometer Output?		Output is a variable resistance such as a potentiometer.
	Search Logic:		"Required" and "Must Not Have" criteria limit returned matches as specified. Products with optional attributes will be returned for either choice.

	Other Output?		Unlisted or specialized output.
	Search Logic:		"Required" and "Must Not Have" criteria limit returned matches as specified. Products with optional attributes will be returned for either choice.

Application


	Application
	Your choices are...
	General Lab & Industrial		General laboratory and industrial data acquisition systems. Special hardening against weather, shock, extreme heat, and other unusual conditions not necessary.
	Environmental		Designed for use in environmental applications such as groundwater monitoring or pollution measurement.
	Vehicular		Applications for vehicular motion, including provisions for factors such as high speed, shock, etc.
	Marine		Designed for use in water or salt water applications.
	Aerospace / Military		Designed for use in aviation, aerospace, or other military or defense applications, including associated technical or military standards.
	Seismic / Geotechnical		Designed for use in seismic applications such as earthquake or volcano research, or industries such as mining.
	Weather / Meteorology		Designed to handle weather or atmospheric data; may include weatherproofing.
	Medical / Biomedical		Designed for use in medical, biomedical, pharmaceutical, or surgical applications.
	Search Logic:		All products with ANY of the selected attributes will be returned as matches. Leaving all boxes unchecked will not limit the search criteria for this question; products with all attribute options will be returned as matches.

Network Specifications


	Networkable System?		Device is designed to communicate with or be a node of a digital network.
	Search Logic:		"Required" and "Must Not Have" criteria limit returned matches as specified. Products with optional attributes will be returned for either choice.

	Network Options:
	Your choices are...
	Ethernet		A standard method of connecting computers to a local area network (LAN) using coaxial cable.
	CANbus		CANbus is a high-speed serial data network engineered to exist in harsh electrical environments.
	DeviceNet		DeviceNet is a network designed to connect industrial devices such as limit switches, photoelectric cells, valve manifolds, motor starters, drives, and operator displays to PLCs and PCs. The network eliminates hard wiring while providing device-level diagnostics.
	SDS		Smart Distributed System (SDS) is an advanced bus system for intelligent sensors and actuators using CAN-based technology.
	Foundation Fieldbus		A bi-directional communications protocol used for communications among field instrumentation and control systems.
	Profibus		PROFIBUS is a vendor-independent, open field bus standard used in a wide variety of manufacturing and process automation applications.
	SERCOS		(SErial Real-time COmmunications System) is an open controller-to-intelligent digital drive interface specification, designed for high-speed serial communication of standardized closed-loop data in real-time over a noise-immune, fiber-optic cable.
	IEEE P1451		A standard designed to produce network-capable, network-independent smart sensors. With the standard, all transducers are identical, regardless of the target network or fieldbus.
	Beckhoff I/O		A communications system that couples open fieldbus protocols to Beckhoff's Bus Terminal I/O. This allows connectivity to a large variety of devices on the Bus Terminal (K-bus).
	IEEE 1394 (Firewire®)		The IEEE 1394 standard is a scalable, flexible, digital interface designed by Apple Computer, Inc., to integrate the worlds of consumer electronics and personal computers. The IEEE 1394 standard defines both a back plane physical layer and a point-to-point cable-connected virtual bus implementations. FireWire, Apple's implementation of IEEE 1394, is a fast peripheral standard for use with multimedia peripherals such as video camcorders and other high-speed devices like the latest hard disk drives and printers.
	Other		Any unlisted network system; may include proprietary networks.
	Search Logic:		All products with ANY of the selected attributes will be returned as matches. Leaving all boxes unchecked will not limit the search criteria for this question; products with all attribute options will be returned as matches.

Analog-to-Digital Conversion Type


	Analog-to-Digital Conversion Type
	Your choices are...
	Flash		A flash ADC applies the input in parallel to many fast comparators whose thresholds are equally spaced throughout the desired input voltage range, typically 1V. At any moment, all the comparators that have thresholds below the input voltage are on, and the rest are off. A series of latching AND gates connect between adjacent comparators so that only the gate at the boundary between the on and off comparators is active. The input clock latches the AND gate outputs, and a pipelined circuit converts this one-out-of-N input to a binary output. Flash ADCs need 2N comparators to generate an N-bit output, and thus they tend to have no more than 6 to 10 output bits. Because the input has to drive all the comparators in parallel, the input capacitance is a major limitation to the bandwidth. The sampling bit synchronizer can often use this input capacitance as one element of the noise filter.
	Half-flash		An ADC that determines its output code by digitally combining the results of two sequentially performed, lower-resolution flash conversions.
	Integrator		An ADC whose output code represents the average value of the input voltage over a given time interval.
	Delta Sigma (Modulator)		A high-accuracy circuit that samples at a higher rate and lower resolution than is needed and (by means of feedback loops) pushes the quantization noise above the frequency range of interest. This out-of-band noise is typically removed by digital filters.
	Successive Approximation		Successive Approximation ADC sequentially compares a series of binary-weighted values with an analog input to produce an output digital word in n steps, where n is the bit resolution of the ADC.
	Voltage-to-Frequency		Voltage-to-frequency ADCs convert an input voltage to an output pulse train with a frequency proportional to the input voltage. Output frequency is determined by counting pulses over a fixed time interval and the voltage is inferred from the known relationship. Voltage-to-frequency conversion has a high degree of noise rejection, because the input signal is effectively integrated over the counting interval. Voltage-to-frequency conversion is commonly used to convert slow and often noisy signals. It is also useful for remote sensing applications in noisy environments. The input voltage is converted to a frequency at the remote location and the digital pulse train is transmitted over a pair of wires to the counter. This eliminates the noise that can be introduced in the transmission of an analog signal over a long distance.
	Other		Any specialized or unlisted method of analog-to-digital conversion.
	Search Logic:		All products with ANY of the selected attributes will be returned as matches. Leaving all boxes unchecked will not limit the search criteria for this question; products with all attribute options will be returned as matches.

Filter Specifications


	Integral Filter?		A filter will allow certain signal frequencies to pass while attenuating others. Filters can operate on signal phase also.
	Search Logic:		"Required" and "Must Not Have" criteria limit returned matches as specified. Products with optional attributes will be returned for either choice.

	Filter Architecture:
	Your choices are...
	Analog (RC)		An analog filter is designed with resistors and capacitors. It is used for analog signals only and is often used in low-noise requirement applications.
	Digital (FIR, IIR)		A digital filter is designed with solid state components and is used for digital signals and quantized signals from a sample-and-hold amplifier. This category includes Finite Impulse Response (FIR) and Infinite Impulse Response (IIR) filters. Digital filtering can approach ideal bandpass characteristics.
	Search Logic:		All products with ANY of the selected attributes will be returned as matches. Leaving all boxes unchecked will not limit the search criteria for this question; products with all attribute options will be returned as matches.

	Number of Poles:		Poles are a measure of complexity of the filter circuitry. In general, more poles will provide a steeper roll-off for a given filter type.
	Your choices are...
	2
	4
	6
	8
	Other
	Search Logic:		Products with the selected attribute will be returned as matches. Leaving or selecting "No Preference" will not limit the search criteria for this question; products with all attribute options will be returned as matches.

	Filter Function:
	Your choices are...
	Low Pass		Low pass filters block or attenuate signals at frequencies above the specified cutoff frequency.
	High Pass		High pass filters block or attenuate signals at frequencies below the specified cutoff frequency.
	Band Pass		Band pass filters block or attenuate signals at frequencies outside of the specified low pass and high pass cutoff frequencies. This is frequently done by combining or "cascading" low-pass and high-pass filters.
	Band Stop		Band stop filters block a portion of the frequency spectrum, allowing lower and higher frequencies to pass.
	All Pass		All-pass filters allow all frequencies to pass; they can be used to introduce desired phase shifts in signals.
	Other		Unlisted or specialized form of filter.
	Search Logic:		All products with ANY of the selected attributes will be returned as matches. Leaving all boxes unchecked will not limit the search criteria for this question; products with all attribute options will be returned as matches.

	Filter Type:
	Your choices are...
	Bessel		Bessel filters have a relatively flat passband and slow roll-off. The stopband is fairly monotonic (ripple-free). Among the filters with the most complex circuitry.
	Butterworth		Butterworth filters provide a very flat response. There is almost no attenuation in the passband. The roll-off rate is somewhat slower than other filters.
	Cauer (Elliptic)		Cauer or elliptic filters provide the fastest roll-off for a given order (number of poles). The pass band and stop band will typically have ripples.
	Chebyshev		Chebyshev filters provide a very fast roll-off, but at the expense of a rippled pass band.
	Linear Phase		Linear phase response filters preserve the phase characteristics of a signal by time-delaying the signal components equally.
	Other
	Search Logic:		All products with ANY of the selected attributes will be returned as matches. Leaving all boxes unchecked will not limit the search criteria for this question; products with all attribute options will be returned as matches.

	Low Pass Cutoff Frequency:		Nominal frequency below which input signal is passed and above which the signal is blocked.
	Search Logic:		User may specify either, both, or neither of the "At Least" and "No More Than" values. Products returned as matches will meet all specified criteria.

	High Pass Cutoff Frequency:		Nominal frequency above which the input signal is passed and below which the signal is blocked.
	Search Logic:		User may specify either, both, or neither of the "At Least" and "No More Than" values. Products returned as matches will meet all specified criteria.

	Anti-aliasing Filter?		Aliasing is the misrepresentation of a signal that comes from an improperly slow sampling of a signal. An anti-aliasing filter generally has a sharper cut-off than a normal low-pass filter to reduce this misrepresentation due to the influence of frequencies higher than desired. It is specified according to the sampling rate of the system and there should be one filter per input signal.
	Search Logic:		"Required" and "Must Not Have" criteria limit returned matches as specified. Products with optional attributes will be returned for either choice.

	Programmable Filter?		Filter parameters such as cutoff frequencies may be interactively programmed by user.
	Search Logic:		"Required" and "Must Not Have" criteria limit returned matches as specified. Products with optional attributes will be returned for either choice.

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