The UF3 series is the latest generation of digitizer cards from Strategic Test. The UF3 is based on a totally new carrier board design – our 5th generation – that now includes the following updated or new features::
There are two input paths per channel on the card, both offering 8 input ranges (+-50 mV … +-10 V). The first path provides the ability to use 1 MOhm input impedance and the other path that delivers a bandwidth of 500 MHz.
The new frontend module now allows AC or DC coupling, and includes a user activated low pass filter. As with the UF2 ADC module each channel can be independently configured with 50 Ohm or 1 MOhm impedance, and have it’s own voltage range.
Although we prefer the term Waveform Digitizers (often shortened to “Digitizers”), other manufacturers may call their products Transient Recorders or PC Oscilloscopes. In any event, the all of these are used to record analog signals at high-speed and with professional instrumentation accuracy.
Read an application note on the advantages of PCI Express here.
Typical applications include ATE, RADAR, Lidar, communications.
Note: 1 8-bit Sample=1Byte
The signals can be recorded to the onboard signal memory at the maximum clock rate using Standard mode. At the end of the measurement, the data is off-loaded to the PC using DMA at the maximum PCI Express bus data transfer rate of up to 120 MBytes/s. While recording, the card operates independently of the host PC which is available for other tasks.
Alternatively, the UF3e boards also provide a FIFO mode that continuously transfers recorded data gap-free to the PC during the measurement at up to 125 MBytes/s. This mode has the advantage that more samples can be recorded than the available on-board memory.
Note that the maximum sampling rate is limited by the PCI Express bus transfer rate, which is typically 125 MBytes/s, and the number of activated channels. For 8-bit A/D boards this equates to a max sampling rate of f=160M/n where n is the total number of activated channels (including all cards in the system).
The Star Hub option is an add-on that allows multiple cards, even of different types, to be synchronized.
The Star Hub distributes the clock and trigger signals, so all channels are without time-skew errors and all cards start on the same trigger condition (any channel, any external TTL trigger). Any card can be defined as the clock master or trigger master by software. It’s also possible to configure AND/OR trigger conditions (channel or external TTL) across multiple cards.
Please note that the UF3 version of the Star Hub is not compatible with the UF2 or UF Star Hub options.
Each channel has it’s own amplifier and dcV offset adjustment. This means you are able to select one of the 7 possible input voltage ranges and adjust the dcV offset to best match the output from your sensor, for every channel.
Most other products limit you to a few fixed sampling rate choices, however with the UF3e cards you simply instruct the software which rate you require and the driver will automatically adjust the onboard PLL and hardware divider to achieve the closest sampling rate possible.
Need to synchronize with external equipment? As standard the UF3e cards are supplied with connectors for external clock and trigger. Both can be programmed as input or output, so the card can receive a TTL clock or output the internal clock and the trigger connector can receive a TTL trigger event or generate a trigger event from either a software trigger or detected channel trigger.
The UF3e cards offer an exceptional range of trigger possibilities to avoid false triggering:
Only six key functions to define a complete setup. Small DLL or module (Linux) uses few system resources and does not conflict with other programs. On request, we will be pleased to send you the User Manual as a pdf so you can see the many examples.
The API is identical for all UF3 and UF2 A/D D/A and Digital cards to reduce programming times.
The UF3e cards are supplied with:
Features
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