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National Instruments Corporation
9-1
Analog Output Series User Manual
9
Bus Interface
Each AO Series device is designed on a complete hardware architecture
that is deployed on either the PCI or PXI platform. Using NI-DAQ driver
software, you have the flexibility to change hardware platforms and
operating systems with little or no change to software code.
MITE and DAQ-PnP
PCI and PXI AO Series devices use the MITE application-specific
integrated circuit (ASIC) as a bus master interface to the PCI bus. PCI and
PXI AO Series devices are inherently Plug-and-Play (PnP) compatible. On
all devices, the operating system automatically assigns the base address of
the device.
Using PXI with CompactPCI
Using PXI-compatible products with standard CompactPCI products is an
important feature provided by
PXI Hardware Specification Revision 2.1
.
If you use a PXI-compatible plug-in module in a standard CompactPCI
chassis, you cannot use PXI-specific functions, but you can still use the
basic plug-in device functions. For example, the RTSI bus on a PXI AO
Series device is available in a PXI chassis, but not in a CompactPCI chassis.
The CompactPCI specification permits vendors to develop sub-buses that
coexist with the basic PCI interface on the CompactPCI bus. Compatible
operation is not guaranteed between CompactPCI devices with different
sub-buses nor between CompactPCI devices with sub-buses and PXI.
The standard implementation for CompactPCI does not include these
sub-buses. The PXI AO Series device works in any standard CompactPCI
chassis adhering to the
PICMG CompactPCI 2.0 R3.0
core specification.
PXI-specific features are implemented on the J2 connector of the
CompactPCI bus. The PXI device is compatible with any CompactPCI
chassis with a sub-bus that does not drive the lines used by that device. Even
if the sub-bus is capable of driving these lines, the PXI device is still
compatible as long as those pins on the sub-bus are disabled by default and
never enabled.
