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National Instruments Corporation
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PCI-MIO E Series User Manual
Chapter
1
Introduction
This chapter describes the PCI-MIO E Series boards, lists what you
need to get started, describes the optional software and optional
equipment, and explains how to unpack your PCI-MIO E Series board.
About the PCI-MIO E Series
Thank you for buying a National Instruments PCI-MIO E Series board.
The PCI-MIO E Series boards are completely Plug and Play,
multifunction analog, digital, and timing I/O boards for PCI bus
computers. This family of boards features 12-bit and 16-bit ADCs with
16 analog inputs, 12-bit and 16-bit DACs with voltage outputs, eight
lines of TTL-compatible digital I/O, and two 24-bit counter/timers for
timing I/O. Because the PCI-MIO E Series boards have no DIP
switches, jumpers, or potentiometers, they are easily software-
configured and calibrated.
The PCI-MIO E Series boards are completely switchless and jumperless
data acquisition (DAQ) boards for the PCI bus. This feature is made
possible by the National Instruments MITE bus interface chip that
connects the board to the PCI I/O bus. The MITE implements the PCI
Local Bus Specification so that the interrupts and base memory
addresses are all software configured.
The PCI-MIO E Series boards use the National Instruments DAQ-STC
system timing controller for time-related functions. The DAQ-STC
consists of three timing groups that control analog input, analog output,
and general-purpose counter/timer functions. These groups include a
total of seven 24-bit and three 16-bit counters and a maximum timing
resolution of 50 ns. The DAQ-STC makes possible such applications as
buffered pulse generation, equivalent time sampling, and seamlessly
changing the sampling rate.
Often with DAQ boards, you cannot easily synchronize several
measurement functions to a common trigger or timing event. The
PCI-MIO E Series boards have the Real-Time System Integration
(RTSI) bus to solve this problem. The RTSI bus consists of our RTSI
