The Star Hub option allows multiple UltraFast PCI or PCI Express boards to be synchronized with a common sampling clock and trigger. The Star Hub datasheet can be downloaded from here.
Boards of the same type may be used or it is also possible to add waveform generator or our high-speed Digitial I/O cards to create mixed-mode test systems. There are two versions of this option: aStar Hub for synchronizing multiple boards within one PC and System Star Hub that's used to synchronize mutliple Star Hub systems in multiple PC's.
Star Hub is available in two variants for PCI and PCI Express boards:
· SH5 - Synchronize up to 5 boards. Does not require an additional PCI slot space.
· SH16 - Synchronize up to 16 boards. The connectors take up one extra slot space.
The Star Hub option synchronizes the clock and trigger signals. It is possible to connect boards of the same model, or to create systems combining a mixture of A/D, D/A and the Digital I/O channels.
Different boards, even having a different number of channels, may operate at different sampling rates and still remain synchronized due to the onboard clock hardware divider; a unique feature. The internal synchronization bus (grey cable in picture) distributes the clock and trigger signals to all of the boards. With Star Hub all boards are perfectly synchronized, there is no clock phase delay between any of the boards.
One of the boards is defined to be the Clock Master board and generates the sample rate clock for itself and the other boards to ensure that there no time-skew between any of the channels and boards. The same or alternatively a different board is also designated as the Trigger Master. This board is used to define the triggering condition that may be used to start the measurement / generation process.
As normal, either an External Trigger (external TTL signal) or a Software Trigger (level, windows, slope etc) may be defined and once detected the trigger signal will be transferred to all of the other boards to initiate the measurement / generation task.
As default, all boards are delivered with the Star Hub slave connector. However, the Star Hub module is a factory installed cost-option
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SH5
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SH16
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| Max. boards per system |
5
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16
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