Grosshansdorf, Germany. For applications where fast electronic signals in the GHz range need to be remotely acquired and analyzed, Spectrum has extended its digitizerNETBOX series of LXI based instruments and released eight new models. Available with two, four, or eight fully synchronous channels, the new units feature sampling rates up to 5 GS/s, bandwidth in excess of 1.5 GHz, and on-board acquisition memory up to 8 GSamples. The combination makes the digitizers suitable for capturing long complex high-frequency signals and for characterizing fast timing events that go down to the nano- and sub-nanosecond ranges.
Fully LXI compliant, the digitizerNETBOX products allow remote control and data transfer over fast Gigabit Ethernet. Connect them directly to a Notebook or PC, or in fact to anywhere on a company LAN, and automated data acquisition becomes easy. Offering advantages in measurement speed, flexibility, size, and channel density, the products can be used to replace conventional bench instruments such as oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers, multi-meters, counters, timers, and older generation digitizer products.
The digitizerNETBOX instruments include Spectrum’s SBench 6 software that allows full instrument control, graphical display, and data storage and analysis. The program offers both oscilloscope and transient recording modes, including continuous data streaming. A special feature of SBench 6 is the segmented acquisition view, which is suitable for capturing burst type signals together with all the associated trigger time-stamping information. SBench 6 can be used to measure parameters, perform FFTs, and run a variety of different math and processing functions such as filtering, averaging, and histograms. Data can be exported into a number of formats such as ASCII, Wave, and MATLAB, making it easy to use the digitizerNETBOX products with a variety of third-party software tools.
Customers who want to control the digitizerNETBOX units with their own software can use the Spectrum drivers (available for Windows and Linux) that are included as part of the product. A set of standard programming examples illustrates the main signal capture functions and support is provided for Visual C++, Borland C++, Gnu C++, NI LabVIEW, Visual Basic, VB.NET, C#, J#, Python, and Delphi code.
With eight different models to choose from you can select a digitizerNETBOX product that best matches your application requirements. The DN2.225-08 offers top of the range performance with eight fully synchronized channels each with over 1.5 GHz of bandwidth and a separate ADC capable of running at 1.25 GS/s. If you need faster sampling the DN2.225-08 lets you combine channels to have four running at 2.5 GS/s or two at 5 GS/s. For cost effective solutions models are also available with 500 MHz bandwidth and lower maximum sampling rates.
All the digitizers are equipped with fully calibrated front-end signal conditioning circuits that offer input ranges from ±200 mV up to ±2.5 V full scale. Further signal conditioning can also be provided through the use of a wide range of optional amplifiers. Signal conditioning allows signals to be scaled correctly so that they use the full 8-bit dynamic range of the digitizer, optimizing measurement accuracy and resolution.
The digitizerNETBOX DN2.22x series instruments are available with immediate delivery and are shipped with SBench6-Pro software, support drivers, and a two-year manufacturer’s warranty.
About the Author
Rick Nelson
Contributing Editor
Rick is currently Contributing Technical Editor. He was Executive Editor for EE in 2011-2018. Previously he served on several publications, including EDN and Vision Systems Design, and has received awards for signed editorials from the American Society of Business Publication Editors. He began as a design engineer at General Electric and Litton Industries and earned a BSEE degree from Penn State.