Introduction
Preface
(c) Spectrum GmbH
9
Introduction
Preface
This manual provides detailed information on the hardware features of your Spectrum instrumentation board. This information includes tech-
nical data, specifications, block diagram and a connector description.
In addition, this guide takes you through the process of installing your board and also describes the installation of the delivered driver package
for each operating system.
Finally this manual provides you with the complete software information of the board and the related driver. The reader of this manual will
be able to integrate the board in any PC system with one of the supported bus and operating systems.
Please note that this manual provides no description for specific driver parts such as those for LabVIEW or MATLAB. These drivers have ded-
icated manuals, which are available on CD or on the Spectrum website.
For any new information on the board as well as new available options or memory upgrades please contact our website
www.spectrum-instrumentation.com. You will also find the current driver package with the latest bug fixes and new features on our site.
Please read this manual carefully before you install any hardware or software. Spectrum is not responsible
for any hardware failures resulting from incorrect usage.
Overview
The PCI bus was first introduced in 1995. Nowadays it is the most common platform for PC based instrumentation boards. The very
wide range of installations world-wide, especially in the consumer market, makes it a platform of good value. Its successor is the
2004 introduced PCI Express standard. In today’s standard PC there are usually two to three slots of both standards available for
instrumentation boards. Special industrial PCs offer up to a maximum of 20 slots. The common PCI/PCI-X bus with data rates of up
to 133 MHz x 64 bit = 1 GByte/s per bus, is more and more replaced by the PCI Express standard with up to 4 GByte/s data transfer rate
per slot. The Spectrum M2i boards are available in two versions, for PCI/PCI-X as well as for PCI Express. The 100% software compatible
standards allow to combine both standards in one system with the same driver and software commands.
Within this document the name M2i is used as a synonym for both versions, either PCI/PCI-X or PCI Express. Only passages that
differ concerning the bus version of the M2i.xxxx and M2i.xxxx-exp cards are mentioned separately. Also all card drawings will
show the PCI/PCI-X version as example if no differences exist compared to the PCI Express version.
General Information
The M2i.30xx series offer a wide range of very fast 12 bit A/D converter boards for PCI-X, PCI and PCI Express (PCIe) bus. Due to the well-
planned design these boards are available in several versions and different speed grades. That makes it possible for the user to find an
individual solution.
These boards offer one to four channels with a maximum sample rate of 200 MS/s. As an option 4 digital inputs per channel can be recorded
synchronously. The installed memory of up to 2 GSample will be used for fast data recording. It can completely be used by the currently
active channels. If using slower sample rates the memory is switched to a FIFO buffer and data will be transferred online to the PC memory
or to hard disk.
Several boards of the M2i.xxxx series may be connected together by the internal standard synchronisation bus in combination with one of
the star-hub options to work with the same time base.
Application examples: Laboratory equipment, Supersonic, LDA/PDA, Radar, Spectroscopy.
