Chapter 3
Hardware Overview
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National Instruments Corporation
3-3
The PCI-7390 RTSI connector provides up to eight triggers to facilitate
synchronization between multiple National Instruments products. Typical
applications of the RTSI bus include triggering an image acquisition or
DAQ measurement based on motion events, or capturing current motion
positions based on events external to the motion controller. You also can
use the RTSI bus for general hardware-based communication between
RTSI devices.
The RTSI bus also can be used for general-purpose I/O. Refer to Chapter 4,
, for details about RTSI connector signals.
Functional Overview
This section provides an overview of the PCI-7390 capabilities, including
the advanced dual-processor architecture, axes and motion resources, and
communication with the host computer.
Dual Processor Architecture
The PCI-7390 can perform up to four axes of simultaneous motion control
in a preemptive, multitasking, real-time environment.
An advanced dual-processor architecture that uses a real-time 32-bit CPU
combined with a DSP and a custom FPGA give the PCI-7390 controllers
high-performance capabilities. The FIFO bus interface and powerful
function set provide high-speed communications while off-loading
complex motion functions from the host PC for optimized system
performance.
The PCI-7390 uses the DSP for all closed-loop control and motion
trajectory generation. The DSP chip is supported by a custom FPGA that
performs the high-speed encoder interfacing, trigger (position capture) and
breakpoint (position compare) functions, motion I/O processing, and
stepper pulse generation for hard real-time functionality.
The embedded CPU runs a multitasking, real-time operating system and
handles host communications, command processing, multi-axis
interpolation, error handling, general-purpose digital I/O, and overall
motion system integration functions.
