NI LabVIEW instrument driver FPGA extensions

National Instruments has announced several additions to its NI LabVIEW reconfigurable I/O (RIO) architecture, increasing user flexibility and ability to meet modern automated test system challenges and reduce the total cost of test.

The most significant platform updates are new instrument driver FPGA extensions, a feature of the NI RF signal analyser and RF signal generator instrument drivers that provide flexibility and compatibility. The FPGA extensions build on the release of the NI PXIe-5644R vector signal transceiver. Engineers already using vector signal transceivers can upgrade their drivers then mix application-specific FPGA code with standard instrument driver code.

Another addition to the LabVIEW RIO architecture is the NI PXIe-7975R NI FlexRIO FPGA module, which offers the latest Xilinx 7 Series FPGA technology for automated test and high-performance embedded applications. The NI FlexRIO FPGA module doubles the data streaming bandwidth to 1.6 GBps and quadruples the onboard DRAM to 2 GB when compared with current FPGA modules. Two new NI FlexRIO adapter modules, the 4.4 GHz NI 5792 receiver and NI 5793 RF transmitter, are also available.

To address greater processing requirements for floating-point maths, NI improves the CPU capability of the LabVIEW RIO architecture with the NI PXIe-8383mc PXImc adapter module, with which engineers can spread floating-point processing across multiple CPUs in the system the same way fixed-point processing deploys across multiple FPGAs.