ATS9373 User Manual
Contents
1. 4 ATS9373 User Manual 50 AlazarTech ALAZAR TECHNOLOGIES INC 6600 Trans Canada Highway Suite 310 Pointe Claire QC CANADA H9R 4S2 Tel 514 426 4899 Fax 514 426 2723 E mail info alazartech com Web www alazartech com2. ATS9373 User Manual 9 Installing the ATS9373 There are four main steps involved in installation 1 Physically install the digitizer s and SyncBoard if any in your computer Install ATS9373 software driver Install AlazarDSO software that allows you to setup the hardware acquire signals and view and archive them Optionally install the ATS SDK software development kit or ATS VI LabVIEW VI which enables you to programmatically control the ATS9373 The following paragraphs will guide you through this process in a step by step manner ATS9373 User Manual 1 Physically install the digitizer in your computer Identify an unused PCI Express slot on your motherboard As per PCI Express specification the 8 lane ATS9373 card is compatible with any 8 lane or 16 lane connector on the motherboard Make sure that your computer is powered off before you attempt to insert the ATS9373 digitizer in one of the free PCI Express slots For best noise performance leave as much room as possible between your ATS9373 and other hardware Always screw the digitizer bracket to the chassis in order to create a stable and robust connection to chassis ground In the absence of such a connection 59373 is not guaranteed to operate within the specifications listed elsewhere in this manual A Some motherboards may have a 16 lane connector but only one or four of the lanes is connected to the motherboard chipset Motherboard manufac
3. ATS9373 User Manual 29 If you purchased 59373 Screened External Clock Upgrade Lower Clock Limit is 100 MHz It is highly recommended that the Fast External Clock signal have a duty cycle of 50 5 However duty cycle specification can be substantially relaxed at lower frequencies If the External Clock supplied is lower than the Lower Clock Limit measurement quality may be compromised Measurement errors may include gain errors signal discontinuities and general signal distortion External Clock must be a at least 200mV sine wave or square wave signal Maximum amplitude for external clock is tV The receiver circuit for Fast External Clock is a high speed ECL receiver that translates the input signal into a PECL Positive ECL clock signal that features very fast rise times Since Fast External Clock is always ac coupled and self biased there is no need for the user to set the external clock level Dummy Clock Switchover is another useful feature for OCT applications that use Fast External Clock In these applications the user supplied clock is not of constant frequency and may even be out of specification at certain times 10 MHz Clock Reference ATS9373 allows the user to synchronize the sampling clock to an external 10 MHz reference signal This is useful in many RF applications Reference clock frequency must be 10 MHz 0 25 MHz Amplitude can be a 200 sine or square wave In 10 MHz PLL e
4. Acquiring Data with Your 4759373 0 220 3 Optional psrades aE 6 CHAPTER 2 INSTALLATION AND CONFIGURATION 7 What You Need to Get 8 Unpacking Ut Ue UR GO LT PEEL TORTE 9 Installing the ATS9373 essere nnne nnne 10 Installing the ATS9373 in a Linux System eee 18 Updating ATS9373 Driver eene nenne 19 CHAPTER 3 HARDWARE OVERVIEW 20 Physical OVervlew unsere tpa 22 Signal Connections etat timo etis 24 Analog Input sisira eei e eite terio Rer ERR 25 RIEN 27 Optional External Clock ui itinere eI 29 Streaming Data Across the 31 APPENDIX 8 42 APPENDIX B 5 49 x ATS9373 User Manual 1 Introduction This chapter describes the ATS9373 and lists additional equipment ATS9373 User Manual About Your ATS9373 Thank you for your purchase of an ATS9373 This PCI Express PCle Gen3 x8 based waveform digitizer has the following features Two 12 bit resolution analog input channels Real time sampling rate of 4 GS s to 1 KS s with internal clock and 4 GS s to 300 MS s with external clock Uses on board S
5. Manufacturer includes a DoC for most every hardware product except for those bought for 5 if also available from an original manufacturer that also markets in the EU or where compliance is not required as for electrically benign apparatus or cables To obtain the DoC for this product click Declaration of Conformity at http www alazartech com support documents htm This web page lists all DoCs by product family Select the appropriate product to download or read the DoC Certain exemptions apply in the USA see Rules 815 103 Exempted devices and 15 105 c Also available in sections of CFR 47 The Mark Declaration of Conformity will contain important supplementary information and instructions for the user or installer Environmental Compliance Alazar Technologies Inc hereby certifies that this product is RoHS compliant as defined by Directive 2002 95 EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 January 2003 on the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment All manufacturing has been done using RoHS compliant components and lead free soldering ATS9373 User Manual ix Table of Contents Important Information iii Compliance nene abb ee the vil Table of Contents 2 5 tg Rete etit x CHAPTER 1 0 009 0 1 About Your ATS9373 7 ee de e RR 2
6. disk that is supplied on a USB flash drive If It does not auto run manually run the Autorun exe program on the USB flash drive The following splash schreen will be displayed eg AlazarTech EXPRESS Click Install Driver The following screen will appear Select ATS9373 and click OK Select driver Which driver do you wish to install 58 0 n ATS9310 ATS9325 ATS9350 ATS9351 ATS9360 ATS9370 ATS9440 ATS9462 ATS9625 ATS9626 59850 ATS9870 ATS9373 User Manual 13 Windows will display the Welcome to the AlazarTech ATS9373 Device Driver Installer Welcome to the AlazarTech ATS9373 Device Driver Installer This wizard will walk you through updating the drivers for your ATS9373 PCI Express digitizer board To continue click Next Depending on the settings of your Windows user account you may see a Windows Security screen Press install after optionaly checking Always trust software from Alazar Technologies Inc Would you like to install this device software Name AlazarTech Inc AlazarTech PCIe Digitiz Publisher Technologies Inc Always trust software from Alazar Technologies Don t Install Inc You should only install driver software from publishers you trust How I decide which device software is safe to install A dialog box will be displayed showin
7. levels indicated in Appendix A Specifications Note that AlazarTech calibration is fully NIST traceable However your digitizer needs to be periodically recalibrated in order to maintain its specified accuracy This calibration due date is listed on the CALIBRATION sticker affixed to your ATS9373 digitizer Externally recalibrate the ATS9373 when this calibration interval has expired This requires three very simple steps 1 Verify whether or not ATS9373 is still within its specifications If it is then your calibration can be extended by another one year period 2 If not perform calibration i e make adjustments to the circuit until it is within specifications again 3 If any adjustments have been made verify if the ATS9373 is within specifications Recalibration must be performed at AlazarTech factory ATS9373 User Manual 27 Models of ATS9373 06 59373 is available in two models ATS9373 A3 Order number ATS9373 001 features a large Stratix V FPGA 5SGXMA3K3F40C3N whereas ATS9373 D6 Order number ATS9373 002 features an even larger and more DSP rich FPGA 5SGSMD6K3F40C3N From the user s point of view the difference impacts e The on FPGA FFT processing capabilities The D6 version of the FFT module is able to process data at full acquisition speed whereas the can only do of the acquisition rate e FPGA customization Contact AlazarTech for more information 28 ATS9373 User
8. maximum sustained transfer rate of the motherboard without causing an overflow ATS9373 User Manual 37 This is the recommended mode for very long signal recording Triggered Streaming AsyncDMA Triggered Streaming AutoDMA is virtually the same as Continuous mode except the data transfer across the bus is held off until a trigger event has been detected Triggered Streaming AutoDMA buffers do not include headers so it is not possible to get trigger time stamps A BUFFER_OVERFLOW flag is asserted only if the entire on board memory is used up As in Continuous mode the amount of data to be captured is controlled by counting the number of buffers acquired Acquisition is stopped by an AbortCapture command Triggered Streaming AutoDMA can easily acquire data to PC host memory at the maximum sustained transfer rate of the motherboard without causing an overflow This is the recommended mode for RF signal recording that has to be started at a specific time e g based on a GPS pulse Stream To Disk Any one of the AutoDMA modes can be combined with a fast disk drive to create a very efficient and low cost data streaming system AlazarDSO Stream To Disk module sold separately allows out of the box disk streaming No programming is required Note however that the speed with which data can be stored to memory will be limited by the lower of 1 59373 Bus Throughput 6 8 GB s 2 PCI Express throughput supported by
9. the back of the PCB 22 ATS9373 User Manual Lastly 59373 has various status LEDs on the edge of the PCB that can be used for debugging ATS9373 User Manual 23 Signal Connections You can use CH A and CH B to digitize data as well as to trigger an acquisition Use the TRIG IN input for an external trigger only data on the TRIG channel cannot be digitized If External Clock Upgrade is installed on your ATS9373 use the ECLK input for clocking the ATS9373 in applications that require an external clock Consult the chapter Optional External Clock for details on various types of clocking schemes available AUX I O connector can be used as the following 5 Outputs e Trigger Output e Pacer Output e Digital Output Inputs e Trigger Enable Input e Digital Input e Clock Switchover Control 24 ATS9373 User Manual Analog Input The two analog input channels are referenced to common ground in bipolar mode These settings are fixed therefore neither the reference nor the polarity of input channels can be changed You cannot use CH A or CH B to make differential measurements or measure floating signals unless you subtract the digital waveforms in software For accurate measurements make sure the signal being measured is referenced to the same ground as your ATS9373 by attaching the cable s ground shield to the signal ground The External Trigger input labeled TRIG IN has a 2 5 V analog Input range
10. the system does not work at your PRF rates with your software ATS9373 User Manual 33 is an excerpt from a FAQ section of one such supplier of RTOS Question How do system configuration and CPU selection impact the interrupt latency Answer Hardware platforms and the configuration of the associated drivers that use the hardware do impact response times Some of the common issues include Video cards some of the higher end cards lock out or busy wait the bus for extended periods of time to improve their performance DMA devices devices which burst DMA for lengthy period Power management which cycles off the CPU during IDLE CPU periods Memory speeds processor speeds etc A PCI or PCI Express digitizer being used in a PRF or streaming application is by definition doing burst DMA for lengthy period and is a type of product that can negatively impact response times of the RTOS As such the claim that an RTOS can remove all timing uncertainties in PRF application is suspect to say the least Furthermore you may not be able to get software drivers for the selected RTOS for all the hardware components you need for your system In summary moving to a real time operating system will not guarantee data throughput but will surely increase the overall system cost increase the cost of software development and maintenance and limit the number of suppliers for other hardware components Dual Port Me
11. use the complex window function to do windowing and dispersion compensation simultaneously The complex FFT output is converted to magnitude in single precision floating point format A logarithmic output is also available It is also possible to DMA both frequency and time domain data This allows users to verify FPGA based FFT operation during algorithm development raw FFT or both Linear Log Complex Scalin Window Function 7 He to memory A Odd length record Padded record FA amplitude Figure 3 On FPGA FFT Block Diagram The standard ATS9373 A3 can perform 250 000 4096 point FFTs per second whereas ATS9373 D6 can do as many as 1 000 000 FFTs per second i e gapless FFT 40 ATS9373 User Manual FPGA Customization ATS9373 s FPGA is not user programmable but AlazarTech provides a service of FPGA customization For more information contact the AlazarTech factory ATS9373 User Manual 41 Appendix A Specifications This appendix lists the specifications of the ATS9373 These specifications are typical at 25 C unless otherwise stated The operating temperature range is 0 to 50 C Minimum Requirements OS Windows 8 x Windows 7 or Windows XP both 32 and 64 bit or a Supported Linux Distributions RAM 4GB HDD 100 MB of free hard disk space PCI Slot One free PCle slot that is mechanically x8 or x16 Recommended Motherboard Specifications PCI Express revis
12. 373 User Manual ONIYOLINOW W3 1SAS sna N39 SS3udX3 19 3NV1 8 8 H ae 910 8X L _ A 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 cm lt 034 lt 1304 960p ANIHOVW 3115 1 Nowisinodov 4 lt uu aS V9d4 TOYLNOD O I gt lt 318V12313S JYVMLIOS TLL WOl1VuvdWoo u399Iul TVNuU31X3 ova d Q H gt viva 8 OD Q S viva 8 ZH9 7 ZHW OT ODA MOT 52018 6S1V xnv 21 ATS9373 User Manual Physical Overview Memory SO DIMMs Status LEDs SyncBoard Connector N 5 7 Bracket Z 4 External Clock Channel A Figure 1 ATS9373 Overview Channel B External Trigger Auxiliary 1 ATS9373 has 5 SMA connectors e The external clock input CH A The channel A input CHB The channel B input e TRIG IN The external trigger input e AUXI O An auxiliary input output connector It also has a bracket LED that can be software controlled and is used for identification In addition ATS9373 has a special connector on the edge of the PCB used for connection to a SyncBoard for master slave operation ATS9373 has two memory SO DIMM connectors
13. AC Maximum frequency 2 GHz for Fast External Clock In DES mode sampling rate is 2 x external clock frequency 10 1 MHz for 10 MHz Reference Input Minimum frequency 300 MHz for Fast External Clock in non DES mode 500 MHz for Fast External Clock in DES mode 9 9 MHz for 10 MHz Reference Input ATS9373 User Manual 45 Sampling Edge Rising only for non DES mode Rising and Fallilng for DES mode Sample Rates Available With 10 MHz Clock Reference All sample rates from 300 MHz to 2 GHz non DES mode or from 500 MHz to 2 GHz DES mode Note that the accuracy and stability of these sampling frequencies is dependent on the accuracy and stability of the 10 MHz Clock Referece input supplied by the user Triggering System Mode Trigger Engines Trigger Engine Source Hysteresis Trigger sensitivity Trigger level accuracy Bandwidth Trigger Delay Trigger Timeout Edge triggering with hysteresis 2 CH A CH B EXT Software or None independently software selectable for each of the two Trigger Engines 5 of full scale input typical 10 of full scale input range This implies that the trigger system may not trigger reliably if the input has an amplitude less than 10 of full scale input range selected 55 typical of full scale input range of the selected trigger source 250 MHz Software selectable from 0 to 9 999 999 sampling clock cycles Has to meet alignment requirements see ATS SDK G
14. AlazarTech ATS9373 User Manual 12 Bit 4 GS s Waveform Digitizer for PCI Express Gen3 Bus Written for Hardware Version 1 2 April 2015 Edition Part Number 9373 USR 1 Copyright 2010 2015 AlazarTech All rights reserved AlazarTech Contact Information AlazarTech Inc 6600 Trans Canada Highway Suite 310 Pointe Claire QC Canada H9R 452 Telephone 514 426 4899 Fax 514 426 2723 E mail info alazartech com Web site www alazartech com To comment on the documentation for ATS9373 send e mail to support alazartech com Information required when contacting AlazarTech for technical support Owned by Serial Number Purchase Date Purchased From Software Driver Version SDK Version AlazarDSO Version Operating System ATS9373 User Manual i ATS9373 User Manual Important Information Warranty The ATS9373 is warranted against defects in materials and workmanship for a period of one year from the date of shipment as evidenced by receipts or other documentation AlazarTech Inc will at its option repair or replace equipment that proves to be defective during the warranty period This warranty includes parts and labor The media on which you receive AlazarTech Inc software are warranted not to fail to execute programming instructions due to defects in materials and workmanship for a period of 90 days from date of shipment as evidenced by receipt
15. EIN ALAZARTECH INC MAKES NO WARRANTIES EXPRESS OR IMPLIED AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS ANY WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE CUSTOMER S RIGHT TO RECOVER DAMAGES CAUSED BY FAULT OR NEGLIGENCE ON THE PART OF ALAZARTECH INC SHALL BE LIMITED TO THE AMOUNT THERETOFORE PAID BY THE CUSTOMER ALAZARTECH INC WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES RESULTING FROM LOSS OF DATA PROFITS USE OF PRODUCTS OR INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY THEREOF This limitation of the liability of AlazarTech Inc will apply regardless of the form of action whether in contract or tort including negligence Any action against AlazarTech Inc must be brought within one year after the cause of action accrues AlazarTech Inc shall not be liable for any delay in performance due to causes beyond its reasonable control The warranty provided herein does not cover damages defects malfunctions or service failures caused by owner s failure to follow the AlazarTech Inc installation operation or maintenance instructions owner s modification of the product owner s abuse misuse or negligent acts and power failure or surges fire flood accident actions of third parties or other events outside reasonable control Copyright Under the copyright laws this publication may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form electronic or mechanical including photocopying recording storing in an informat
16. Manual Optional External Clock ATS9373 PCI Digitizer optionally allows you to supply the ADC clock This option is extremely important in many RF applications in which phase measurements must be made between the inputs themselves or between the inputs and an external event Another application that requires external clock is Optical Coherence Tomography OCT that sometimes requires analog sampling to take place relative to an MZI clock sometimes also known as k clock Driving high performance ADCs must be done carefully as any injection of phase jitter through ADC clocks will result in reduction in data conversion quality Aside from phase noise the clock signal for a pipelined ADC must also a duty cycle close to 50 This maximizes the dynamic performance of the ADC See Fast External Clock section below for more details External clock input impedance is fixed at 50 Ohms External clock input is always AC coupled There are two types of External Clock supported by ATS9373 e Fast External Clock e 10 MHz Clock Reference The following paragraphs describe the two types of External Clock input and outline the restrictions on each of them Fast External Clock This setting must be used when the external clock frequency is in the range of 2 GHz down to Lower Clock Limit If you purchased ATS9373 Standard External Clock Upgrade Lower Clock Limit is 300 MHz for single edge sampling and 500 MHz for dual edge sampling
17. O DIMM RAM as a very deep FIFO Streaming of acquired data to PC host memory at 6 8 GB s exact rate is motherboard dependent 1 GHz analog input bandwidth Optional upgrade to 2 GHz available Half length PCI Express 8 lane card External trigger input channel with software selectable level and slope DC coupling and fixed 500 input impedance for analog inputs Pre trigger and Post Trigger Capture with Multiple Record capability NIST traceable calibration Dual DMA engines for best latency protection against Windows and Linux operating systems Fully asynchronous software driver for fastest DMA with least CPU overhead All ATS9373 digitizers follow industry standard Plug and Play specifications on all platforms and offer seamless integration with compliant systems Detailed specifications of the ATS9373 digitizers are listed in Appendix A Specifications ATS9373 User Manual Acquiring Data with Your ATS9373 You can acquire data either programmatically by writing an application for your ATS9373 or interactively with the AlazarDSO software If you want to integrate the ATS9373 in your test and measurement or embedded OEM application you can program the digitizer using C C Python MATLAB or LabVIEW for Windows or Linux operating systems Windows operating systems supported are Windows 8 7 Windows Vista and Windows XP Windows Both 32 bit and 64 bit operating systems gt The Linux CentOS distribution i
18. Record Length Software selectable with 128 point resolution Record length must be a minimum of 256 points There is no upper limit on the maximum record length Number of Records Software selectable from a minimum of 1 to maximum of infinite number of records Pre trigger depth From 0 to 4096 Post trigger depth Record Length Pre Trigger Depth Timebase System Timebase options Internal Clock or External Clock Optional Internal Sample Rates DES mode 4 GS s 3 6 GS s 3 2 GS s 3 GS s 2 4 GS s In non DES mode 2 0 GS s 1 8 GS s 1 5 GS s 1 2 GS s 1 GS s 800 MS s 500 MS s 200 MS s 100 MS s 50 MS s 20 MS s 10 MS s 5 MS s 2 MS s 1 MS s 500 KS s 200 KS s 100 KS s 50 KS s 20 KS s 10 KS s 5 KS s 2 KS s 1 KS s Internal Clock accuracy 2 ppm 44 ATS9373 User Manual Dynamic Parameters Typical values measured on CH A of a randomly selected ATS9373 Input signal was provided by 52384 signal generator followed by a multi pole 10 MHz band pass filter TTE Q36T 10M 1M 50 720BMF Input frequency was set at 9 9 MHz and output amplitude was approximately 95 of the full scale input Input was averaged SNR 57 1 dB SINAD 56 6 dB Note that these dynamic parameters may vary from one unit to another with input frequency and with the full scale input range selected Optional ECLK External Clock Input Signal Level 200mV Sine wave or square wave Input impedance 500 Input Coupling
19. SYSTEM FAILURES ANY APPLICATION WHERE A SYSTEM FAILURE WOULD CREATE A RISK OF HARM TO PROPERTY OR PERSONS INCLUDING THE RISK OF BODILY INJURY AND DEATH SHOULD NOT BE RELIANT SOLELY UPON ONE FORM OF ELECTRONIC SYSTEM DUE TO THE RISK OF SYSTEM FAILURE TO AVOID DAMAGE INJURY OR DEATH THE USER OR APPLICATION DESIGNER MUST TAKE REASONABLY PRUDENT STEPS TO PROTECT AGAINST SYSTEM FAILURES INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO BACK UP OR SHUT DOWN MECHANISMS BECAUSE EACH END USER SYSTEM IS CUSTOMIZED AND DIFFERS FROM ALAZARTECH INC s TESTING PLATFORMS AND BECAUSE A USER OR APPLICATION DESIGNER ATS9373 User Manual MAY USE ALAZARTECH INC PRODUCTS IN COMBINATION WITH OTHER PRODUCTS IN A MANNER NOT EVALUATED OR CONTEMPLATED BY ALAZARTECH INC THE USER OR APPLICATION DESIGNER IS ULTIMATELY RESPONSIBLE FOR VERIFYING AND VALIDATING THE SUITABILITY OF ALAZARTECH INC PRODUCTS WHENEVER ALAZARTECH INC PRODUCTS ARE INCORPORATED IN A SYSTEM OR APPLICATION INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION THE APPROPRIATE DESIGN PROCESS AND SAFETY LEVEL OF SUCH SYSTEM OR APPLICATION vi ATS9373 User Manual Compliance FCC Canada Radio Frequency Interference Compliance Determining FCC Class The Federal Communications Commission FCC has rules to protect wireless communications from interference The FCC places digital electronics into two classes These classes are known as Class A for use in industrial commercial locations only or Clas
20. er Manual 35 applications Software still has to involved in re arming the hardware after every capture and again for reading the data from on board acquisition memory ATS9373 s proprietary AutoDMA circuitry allows the acquisition system to be re armed by a hardware command and data transfer to be initiated by the hardware itself thus removing virtually all in process software involvement ACQUIRE ACQUIRE TRANSFER TRANSFER Figure 2 AutoDMA acquisition and transfer cycle Of course software still has to set up the DMA when one of the buffers fills up but thanks to the dual DMA engine and fully asynchronous driver that uses overlapped IO these tasks can be paralleled In other words when software is re arming DMA channel 0 DMA channel 1 is already transferring data to host memory Note that if data throughput is too high a OVERFLOW flag gets set and is available to the programmer Consumption of the captured data is of course under the control of user created software and it is this that will determine the maximum PRF instead of the bus throughput The important thing to note is that if asynchronous DMA is used CPU usage is no more than 596 even if a 6 8 GB s DMA is going on No Pre Trigger NPT AsyncDMA Many ultrasonic scanning and medical imaging applications do not need any pre trigger data only post trigger data is sufficient 36 ATS9373 User Manual AutoDMA is designed
21. g the progress of installation of ATS9373 driver files in the operating system driver store The following final screen will confirm that the driver has been insalled 14 ATS9373 User Manual Congratulations You are finished installing your AlazarTech ATS9373 PCI Express digitizer board The drivers were successfully installed on this computer You can now connect your device to this computer If your device came with instructions please read them first Driver Name Status AazarTech Inc ATS93 Ready to use Now your ATS9373 is fully installed and is ready to use ATS9373 User Manual 15 3 Install AlazarDSO software that allows you to setup the hardware acquire signals and view and archive them If you are installing from the USB flash drive shipped with the 59373 digitizer run the Autorun exe e Click on Install AlazarDSO e Follow the instructions on the screen If you are installing AlazarDSO after having downloaded the installation file from AlazarTech web site e Download AlazarDSO installation file from www alazartech com support downloads htm e Unzip the file downloaded in the previous step e Browse to the folder that contains the unzipped file AlazarDsoSetup exe Runthis executable file and follow the instructions on the screen 16 ATS9373 User Manual 4 Optionally install the ATS SDK software Insert the ATS SDK CD Software installation will start a
22. has to play any appreciable part in data transfer then the data throughput cannot be guaranteed as the operating system will have the last say as to when the data collection application will get the CPU cycles to execute the necessary commands Note that the above is true even if the digitizer claims to use Direct Memory Access DMA to do the actual transfer but uses software commands to re arm the digitizer It is the re arm command that will determine the overall data throughput For example it is very common for PCI digitizers that boast very fast throughput to slow down considerably when capturing pulsed radar or ultrasonic signals at Pulse Repeat Frequency PRF of 1 KHz or so even though each capture is only 2048 bytes a paltry 2 MB s throughput In other words digitizers that specify raw data throughput of 100 MB s can hardly handle 2MB s effective throughput due to operating system related delays in issuing re arm commands Real Time Operating Systems Some vendors claim that switching to a real time operating system RTOS can solve the problems involved in PRF data capture Before switching to an expensive RTOS such as VxWorks QNX or PharLap ETS ask the vendor of the operating system the supplier of your PC system and manufacturer of the digitizer board if they are all guaranteed to be 10096 compatible and interoperable with each other with deterministic interrupt latencies and if you will get your money back if
23. ications Commission FCC and the Canadian Department of Communications DOC ATS9373 User Manual vii Changes or modifications not expressly approved by AlazarTech Inc could void the user s authority to operate the equipment under the FCC Rules Class A Federal Communications Commission This equipment has been tested and found to comply with the limits for a Class A digital device pursuant to part 15 of the FCC Rules These limits are designed to provide reasonable protection against harmful interference when the equipment is operated in a commercial environment This equipment generates uses and can radiate radio frequency energy and if not installed and used in accordance with the instruction manual may cause harmful interference to radio communications Operation of this equipment in a residential area is likely to cause harmful interference in which case the user will be required to correct the interference at his own expense Canadian Department of Communications This Class A digital apparatus meets all requirements of the Canadian Interference Causing Equipment Regulations Cet appareil num rique de la classe A respecte toutes les exigences du R glement sur le mat riel brouilleur du Canada viii ATS9373 User Manual Compliance to EU Directives Readers in the European Union EU must refer to the Manufacturer s Declaration of Conformity DoC for information pertaining to the CE Mark compliance scheme The
24. indows and Linux ATS9373 User Manual 5 Optional Upgrades AlazarTech offers the following upgrades and accessories for use with your ATS9373 digitizer e ATS9373 External Clock Upgrade 300MHz to 2 GHz e ATS9373 Screened External Clock Upgrade 100MHz to 2 GHz e ATS9373 DC 2 GHz Wideband Upgrade 6 ATS9373 User Manual Chapter 2 Installation and Configuration This chapter describes how to unpack install and configure your ATS9373 ATS9373 User Manual 7 What You Need to Get Started To set up and use your ATS9373 you will need the following e One or more ATS9373 digitizers ATS9373 Installation Software on USB Disk 8 ATS9373 User Manual Unpacking Your digitizer is shipped in an antistatic clamshell package to prevent electrostatic damage to the digitizer Electrostatic discharge can damage several components on the digitizer To avoid such damage in handling the digitizer take the following precautions e Ground yourself via a grounding strap or by holding grounded object e Touch the antistatic package to a metal part of your computer chassis before removing the digitizer from the package e Remove the digitizer from the package and inspect the digitizer for loose components or any other sign of damage Notify AlazarTech if the digitizer appears damaged in any way Do not install a damaged digitizer into your computer e Never touch the exposed pins of the connectors
25. ion 3 or higher PCI Express Transceiver speed 8 Gbps PCI Express Port lanes 8 A Please note that the PCI Express Revision has to be supported by both your motherboard and your CPU model For example the ASRock X79Extreme11 motherboard supports PCle Gen 3 but the Intel i7 3820 CPU only supports PCle Gen 2 A system made of these two components will only support PCle Gen 2 Power Requirements 12V 1 5 typical 3 3V 2 9 A typical 42 ATS9373 User Manual Physical Size Single slot half length PCI card 4 2 inches x 6 5 inches Weight 250g Connectors ECLK SMA female CHA SMA female CHB SMA female TRIG IN SMA female AUX I O SMA female Environmental Operating temperature Storage temperature Relative humidity Acquisition System Resolution Bandwidth 3dB Number of channels Max Sample Rate Min Sample Rate Full Scale Input range DC accuracy Input coupling to 55 C 20 to 70 C 5 to 95 non condensing 12 bits 1GHz optionally 2 GHz 2 simultaneously sampled 2 GS s single shot in dual channel mode 4 GS s single shot in single channel mode 1 KS s single shot for internal clocking 400mV 2 of full scale in all input ranges DC ATS9373 User Manual 43 Input impedance 500 t 196 Input protection 4V DC peak for CH A CH B and EXT only without external attenuation Acquisition Memory System Memory Size 8GB 4 Giga samples in one channel mode
26. ion retrieval system or translating in whole or in part without the prior written consent of AlazarTech Inc Trademarks AlazarTech Inc AlazarTech alazartech com ATS ATS9373 AlazarDSO are trademarks of AlazarTech Inc Product and company names mentioned herein are trademarks or trade names of their respective companies Warning Regarding Use of AlazarTech Products 1 ALAZARTECH INC PRODUCTS ARE DESIGNED WITH COMPONENTS AND TESTING iv ATS9373 User Manual FOR LEVEL OF RELIABILITY SUITABLE FOR USE IN OR IN CONNECTION WITH SURGICAL IMPLANTS OR AS CRITICAL COMPONENTS IN ANY LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEMS WHOSE FAILURE TO PERFORM CAN REASONABLY BE EXPECTED TO CAUSE SIGNIFICANT INJURY TO A HUMAN 2 INANY APPLICATION INCLUDING THE ABOVE RELIABILITY OF OPERATION OF THE SOFTWARE PRODUCTS CAN BE IMPAIRED BY ADVERSE FACTORS INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO FLUCTUATIONS IN ELECTRICAL POWER SUPPLY COMPUTER HARDWARE MALFUNCTIONS COMPUTER OPERATING SYSTEM SOFTWARE FITNESS FITNESS OF COMPILERS AND DEVELOPMENT SOFTWARE USED TO DEVELOP AN APPLICATION INSTALLATION ERRORS SOFTWARE AND HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY PROBLEMS MALFUNCTIONS OR FAILURES OF ELECTRONIC MONITORING OR CONTROL DEVICES TRANSIENT FAILURES OF ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS HARDWARE AND OR SOFTWARE UNANTICIPATED USES OR MISUSES OR ERRORS ON THE PART OF THE USER OR APPLICATIONS DESIGNER ADVERSE FACTORS SUCH AS THESE ARE HEREAFTER COLLECTIVELY TERMED
27. mory The basic throughput problem faced by digitizers is that almost all of them use single port memory i e if you are reading data from the acquisition memory you cannot capture into it and vice versa 34 ATS9373 User Manual This requires a software handshake which is heavily dependent on the operating system response time TRIGGERED DATA ACQUISITION USING SINGLE PORT MEMORY TRIGGER INPUT S CAPTURE TRANSFER TO DMA 1 DMA 2 CPU USAGE Acq Finished Finished NOTE 1 Some Trigger events may be missed while data is being off loaded from on board memory NOTE 2 Virtually all CPU cycles are used up in managing data acquisition Very little left for for data processing ATS9373 solves this problem by providing a FIFO and an advanced dual DMA engine that can stream data to PC host memory at up to 6 8 GB s exact rate is motherboard dependent TRIGGERED DATA ACQUISITION USING DUAL PORT MEMORY TRIGGER INPUT S 9 CAPTURE umm d TRANSFER TO PC C 1 gt 2 DMA 3 CPU USAGE Process Buffer 1 Process Buffer 2 NOTE 1 No Trigger Events Are Missed Guaranteed NOTE 2 Over 9596 of CPU cycles are available for data processing Bottom line is that software does not have to wait until the end of data capture to read the acquired data AutoDMA Just having dual ported memory or a FIFO on its own does not solve the problem of PRF captures or streaming ATS9373 Us
28. packages provided with your ATS9373 If you already have installed different AlazarTech products in your computer only the driver package will be new Be sure to use the latest version of all packages though as for example older libraries may not be compatible with all the features of recent drivers ATS9373 User Manual Updating ATS9373 Driver From time to time AlazarTech updates the device drivers for its products These updates may be required for product enhancements or for bug fixes This section of the manual takes you through the steps required to update the device driver for the ATS9373 PCI Express waveform digitizer In other words this section shows you how to install a newer version of the driver when you already have a previous version of the driver installed on your machine Chapter 1 Download the latest driver from AlazarTech s web site www alazartech com support downloads htm Chapter 2 Unzip the downloaded file to a local folder Chapter 3 Run the resulting installation file extension For example the installation file for driver version 5 9 23 is called ATS9373 Driver V5 9 23 exe and follow the instructions ATS9373 User Manual 19 Chapter 3 Hardware Overview This chapter includes an overview of the ATS9373 explains the operation of each functional unit making up your ATS9373 and describes the signal connections Following is a high level block diagram of ATS9373 20 ATS9
29. r different operating systems Given the constantly changing nature of computers these benchmarks are provided as a reference only and AlazarTech assumes no liability in case the computer you purchase behaves differently than what was observed in AlazarTech s laboratory Table 1 64 bit Windows 7 Bus Benchmark Model Chipset CPU Throughput ASUS X99 Intel X99 i7 5930K 6 89 GB s Deluxe Dell Intel C600 2x Xeon 6 56 GB s Precision E5 2609 T7600 ASUS Intel X79 Xeon E5 6 87 GB s P9X79 LE 2603 Table 2 Linux Bus Benchmark Model Chipset CPU Distro Throughput ASUS Intel X99 i7 5930K CentOS 7 6 87 GB s X99 Deluxe ASUS Intel X79 Xeon E5 CentOS 7 6 87 GB s P9X79 2603 LE ATS9373 User Manual 49 Appendix C Mechanical vai mar 221 6S81V Bumnig ELE6SLY S3IDO1ONHO3I 7 1 ran un mow un mow 231 25 2 oj sBuojeq ledoud iv uod Ayouys 51 uononpoudex o6000000 1 092 9959555 mA RW
30. s B for use in residential or commercial locations Depending on where it is operated this product could be subject to restrictions in the FCC rules In Canada the Department of communications DOC of Industry Canada regulates wireless interference in much the same way Digital electronics emit weak signals during normal operation that can affect radio television or other wireless products By examining the product you purchased you can determine the FCC Class and therefore which of the two FCC DOC Warnings apply in the following sections Some products may not be labeled at all for FCC if so the reader should then assume these are Class A devices FCC Class A products only display a simple warning statement of one paragraph in length regarding interference and undesired operation Most of our products are FCC Class A The FCC rules have restrictions regarding the locations where FCC Class A products can be operated FCC Class B products display either a FCC ID code starting with the letters EXN or the FCC Class B compliance mark Consult the FCC web site http www fcc gov for more information FCC DOC Warnings This equipment generates and uses radio frequency energy and if not installed and used in strict accordance with the instructions in this manual and the CE Mark Declaration of Conformity may cause interference to radio and television reception Classification requirements are the same for the Federal Commun
31. s also supported which is 10096 compatible with Red Hat Entreprise Linux Drivers are compiled agains all RHEL versions that are in Production 1 phase RHEL 6 and 7 as of 2015 04 09 gt For other Linux distributions contact AlazarTech and a driver will be compiled for you For using a programming language to acquire data from your ATS9373 you must purchase the ATS SDK package ATS9373 User Manual 3 Interactively Controlling your ATS9373 The AlazarDSO oscilloscope emulation software for Windows allows you to interactively control your ATS9373 as you would a desktop oscilloscope Acquire 92S ADMA NPT 1 1 0 000000000 Int 2MS s Trigger Automatic mul Horizontal 500s gt 4 Vertical InputCh 1 Disable 500 mV 7304 Math 1 2 7 Reference R Under Linux an equivalent application named Alazar Front Panel is available AlazarFrontPanel ATS9373 OK EXE 4 Nor gin al P Engine J Channel B Engine p J 4 ATS9373 User Manual ATS SDK The ATS SDK is used for programming the 59373 in C C C LabVIEW MATLAB and Python It provides the exact same API that is used for writing AlazarDSO software To help you get started ATS SDK comes with examples you can use or modify The ATS SDK contains the necessary files to develop applications both under W
32. s or other documentation AlazarTech Inc will at its option repair or replace software media that do not execute programming instructions if AlazarTech Inc receives notice of such defects during the warranty period AlazarTech Inc does not warrant that the operation of the software shall be uninterrupted or error free A Return Material Authorization RMA number must be obtained from the factory and clearly marked on the outside of the package before any equipment will be accepted for warranty work AlazarTech Inc will pay the shipping costs of returning to the owner parts that are covered by warranty AlazarTech Inc believes that the information in this document is accurate The document has been carefully reviewed for technical accuracy In the event that technical or typographical errors exist AlazarTech Inc reserves the right to make changes to subsequent editions of this document without prior notice to holders of this edition AlazarTech Inc may also make improvements and or changes in the products and or programs described in this document at any time The reader should consult AlazarTech Inc if errors are suspected In no event shall AlazarTech Inc be liable for any damages arising out of or related to this document or the information contained in it The latest user manual can be found on the AlazarTech Inc web page at www alazartech com support downloads htm ATS9373 User Manual iii EXCEPT AS SPECIFIED HER
33. specifically for these applications By only storing post trigger data the memory bandwidth is optimized and the entire on board memory acts like a very deep FIFO Note that a DMA is not started until RecordsPerBuffer number of records triggers have been acquired NPT AutoDMA buffers do not include headers so it is not possible to get trigger time stamps More importantly a BUFFER_OVERFLOW flag is asserted only if the entire on board memory is used up This provides a very substantial improvement over Traditional AutoDMA NPT AutoDMA can easily acquire data to PC host memory at the maximum sustained transfer rate of the motherboard without causing an overflow This is the recommended mode of operation for most ultrasonic scanning OCT and medical imaging applications Continuous AsyncDMA AsyncDMA AsyncDMA Continuous AutoDMA is also known as the data streaming mode In this mode data starts streaming across the PCI bus as soon as the ATS9373 is armed for acquisition It is important to note that triggering is disabled in this mode Continuous AutoDMA buffers do not include headers so it is not possible to get trigger time stamps A BUFFER OVERFLOW flag is asserted only if the entire on board memory is used up The amount of data to be captured is controlled by counting the number of buffers acquired Acquisition is stopped by an AbortCapture command Continuous AutoDMA can easily acquire data to PC host memory at the
34. the motherboard 3 Sustained Throughput of the disk drive system 38 ATS9373 User Manual AlazarDSO includes a Disk Throughput Benchmarking tool using which you can quickly and easily see how fast your disk drives are Accessed by clicking on Tools gt gt Benchmark gt gt Bus File Edit View Configure Cursors Tools Help AutoSetup Calibration Benchmark 2 Hard Disk Coprocessor L Bus Acquire To File Stream To Disk Files are saved as ATB format binary files and can automatically be converted to text files or MATLAB compatible files For more information on complete disk streaming systems please contact the factory or your local distributor Stream To Memory AlazarDSO features a free Stream To Memory module which allows it s users to acquire data to computer RAM and to analyse it or save it to disk later This is very useful in cases where the acquisition data rate is higher than the disk writing speed but the total acquisition size is less than the free RAM of the computer This module is accessed by clicking on Tools Stream To Memory ATS9373 User Manual 39 On FPGA FFT It is now possible to do real time FFT signal processing using the on board FPGA Note that only one input can be processed Up to 4096 point FFT length is supported User programmable complex windowing functions can be applied to the acquired data before FFT calculation OCT customers can
35. turers refer to this as Mechanically 16 lane electrically 1 lane ATS9373 is fully compatible with such motherboards but the data throughput across PCI Express bus will be limited by the number of lanes A Please note that the PCI Express Revision has to be supported by both your motherboard and your CPU model For example the ASRock X79Extreme11 motherboard supports PCle Gen 3 but the Intel i7 3820 CPU only supports PCle Gen 2 A system made of these two components will only support PCle Gen 2 ATS9373 User Manual 11 2 Install ATS9373 software driver The following instructions guide you through the process of installing the ATS9373 in a computer running Windows 8 7 Vista or Windows XP operating systems Note that the images of the dialog boxes shown below were taken from a Windows 7 computer Computers running other versions of Windows may have slightly different dialog boxes When you first boot up the computer the plug n play Windows operating system will detect the presence of a new PCI card and will attempt to install the device driver if found on the computer a If the ATS9373 device driver is not found Windows will display the following dialog box Device driver software was not successfully installed PCI Data Acquisition and Signal Processing x No driver found Controller What 1 do if my device did not install properly Click Close 12 ATS9373 User Manual b Insert the installation
36. uide for more information Software selectable with a 10 us resolution Maximum settable value 46 ATS9373 User Manual is 3 600 seconds Can also be disabled to wait indefinitely for a trigger event TRIG IN External Trigger Input Input impedance Bandwidth 3dB Input range DC accuracy Input protection Coupling TRIG OUT Output Connector Used Output Signal Synchronization 50 Q for 2 5 V range 2 KO for TTL input DC 250 MHz 2 5 V or TTL Input software selectable For TTL ATS9373 accepts both 3 3V and 5V TTL Pulse amplitude must be 2 0 Volts 10 of full scale input 8V DC peak AC without external attenuation DC only AUX 5 Volt TTL Synchronized to a clock derived from the ADC sampling clock Divide by 4 clock dual chan nel mode or divide by 8 clock single channel mode Certification and Compliances CE Mark Compliance Materials Supplied One ATS9373 PCI Express Card ATS9373 User Manual 47 One ATS9373 Install Disk on USB flash drive Supported Linux Distributions AlazarTech supports CentOS and Red Hat Entreprise Linux distributions All versions that are in production phase 1 are supported RHEL 6 and RHEL 7 as of 10 04 15 specifications are subject to change without notice 48 ATS9373 User Manual Appendix Benchmarks This appendix lists the data throughput measured by our technicians on various computers and motherboards unde
37. utomatically If for any reason installation does not start automatically run the ATS SDK Setup 7 0 0 exe Follow the instructions on the screen Note that you must have already installed the ATS9373 drivers for any of the sample programs included with the ATS SDK to work properly ATS9373 User Manual 17 Installing the ATS9373 Linux System ATS9373 ships with the following software packages that can be installed with the standard package manager of your distribution 1 A driver package named after the board model It needs to be installed on a system running the exact same kernel version it was compiled with A library package It contains the shared library that the applications using the digitizers link against A package containing Alazar Front Panel a virtual oscilloscope application that allows you to use most of the features of the boards without programming The ATS SDK product contains an extra software package for your Linux distribution containing the following components 1 2 A programmer s guide for the boards Header files for C C programming and library wrappers for other programming languages Code samples that demonstrate typical acquisition configurations To install an ATS9373 on your Linux system follow the next steps 1 2 3 Connect one or several 59373 in your computer Optionally connect the SyncBoard s Start your computer and install all the software
38. with 500 input impedance or a 3 3V or 5V TTL input with 10kQ impedance Monolithic 12 bit analog to digital converted ATS9373 uses a dual analog to digital converter ADC with a maximum conversion rate of 2 GS s In addition the ADC can be configured in dual edge sampling mode DES to allow up to 4 GS s acquisitions in single channel mode If you use an external clock you must follow all the timing specifications on the external clock as described in Appendix A Specifications Multiple Record Acquisition The ATS9373 allows the capture of multiple records into the on board memory This allows you to capture rapidly occurring triggers in OCT ultrasound or radar applications Specifying Record Length Record Length is specified in number of sample points It must be a minimum of 256 points and must be a multiple of 128 ATS9373 User Manual 25 Specifying Pretrigger Depth You can acquire pre trigger data up to 2048 samples in dual channel and 4096 in single channel Minimum value for pre trigger amount is O Specifying Record Count User can specify the number of records that must be captured into host PC memory The minimum value must be 1 There is no upper limit on how many records you can capture in one acquisition 26 ATS9373 User Manual Calibration Calibration is the process of minimizing measurement errors by making small circuit adjustments All ATS9373 digitizers come factory calibrated to the
39. xternal clock mode the ATS9373 can generate any sample clock frequency between 300 MHz and 2 GHz that is a multiple of 1 MHz 30 ATS9373 User Manual 4 Specific Features This section contains information about features specific to AlazarTech digitizers and ATS9373 in particular ATS9373 User Manual 31 Streaming Data Across the Bus One of the most unique features of the ATS9373 is its on board dual port acquisition memory that can act as a very deep Data FIFO and the associated Dual DMA engine This combined by the advanced fully asynchronous software driver allows data transfer to host PC memory without any appreciable in process software involvement These features are particularly useful for applications that require 8 Continuous gapless data capture Also known as Data Streaming to PC host memory or hard disk b Data capture from rapidly occurring triggers also known as Pulse Repeat Frequency Captures or PRF Captures In order to understand these sophisticated features let us first review some of the issues involved in transferring data under Windows or Linux operating systems 32 ATS9373 User Manual The Effects of the Operating System Windows and most Linux distributions are not real time operating systems i e the operating system cannot guarantee a deterministic response time to an event such as an interrupt or a software generated event This means that if software
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