PXI Newsletter

Newsletter: Superior Measurements with a PXI Differential Amplifier			10/15/2009
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From the Marketing Co-chair of the PXISA, Walter Strickler:

PXI System Alliance Links

Welcome to the October edition of the PXI Newsletter. Our intent is to educate and inform you about how the PXI standard is being used in modular test systems for a wide variety of industries. In that spirit, I would like to summarize a few key points regarding PXI Express, its backward compatibility, and its backplane throughput.

The PXI Express backplane integrates PCI Express while still preserving compatibility with current PXI modules. Users benefit from increasing bandwidth while maintaining backward compatibility with existing systems. PXI Express specifies hybrid slots to deliver signals for both PCI and PCI Express. With PCI Express electrical lines connecting the system slot controller to the hybrid slots of the backplane, PXI Express provides a high bandwidth path from the controller to backplane slots. Using an inexpensive PCI Express-to-PCI bridge, PXI Express provides PCI signaling to all PXI and PXI Express slots to ensure compatibility with PXI modules on the backplane.

With the ability to support up to a x16 PCI Express link in addition to a x8 link, the system controller slot provides a total of 6 GB/s bandwidth to the PXI Express backplane, representing more than a 45X improvement in PXI backplane throughput.

In this issue, we talk about two PXI applications. The first focuses on how to make superior measurements with a PXI differential amplifier. The second article tells how to gain reproducibility and repeatability for RF signal testing using high-bandwidth PXI products. We hope you enjoy this edition of the newsletter.

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Application Article

Averna builds Record & Playback System for Car Radio and GPS System Testing based on PXI Technology
The Challenge:
IAV Automotive Engineering Inc., a Michigan-based company that tests and validates car radios and GPS receivers for the world’s top automakers, needed a way to gain reproducibility and repeatability for RF signal testing, a solution that would help them curb time-consuming and costly field testing as well as further improve device quality.
The Solution:
Averna created a turnkey system that records real-world RF signals, impairments and environmental data for convenient playback in the lab at any time, and that is built using high-bandwidth PXI products. Averna is helping IAV to build a custom reference library for long-term test efficiency.

Thanks to all our readers.
Bob Helsel, Editor
www.pxisa.org

Main Article

Superior Measurements with a PXI Differential Amplifier
Why Make a Differential Measurement:
Making an accurate measurement requires an unbroken chain of signal integrity from the point of connection through the conversion to a numerical value. This article concerns itself with the initial connection and immediate circuitry that conveys the signal of interest to the measurement system. There are many signals of interest in the circuits and systems in existence today that cannot be effectively measured with a single ended connection. A single ended connection is defined as one point referenced to a general ground plane. In contrast, a differential measurement is made between two points that may or may not be at ground potential. This provides obvious advantages when both points are separated from ground but also acts to reduce noise in all measurements even when the point of interest is referenced to local ground.