Measure Rise & Fall Time using HSDIO / Digital Pattern Generator

Measure Rise and Fall time without an oscilloscope, using HSDIO (PXI 6556) or Digital Pattern Generator (PXI 6570 or PXI 6571)

Whether your interest is in simply measuring rise and fall time or to control rise and fall time, you need a way to measure these parameters. This is because rise and fall time is best controlled by indirect means (such as current limit control on a PPMU line) that also require an independent way to measure and calibrate the rise and fall times obtained.

The rise time and fall time of a signal are usually measured using an oscilloscope. In applications involving digital system validation (especially protocol validation), most of the digital timing measurements do not require a scope; except for rise and fall time measurements.

“What if you could eliminate the use of the oscilloscope for rise and fall time measurements and reduce inventory cost?”

In this article, we show you a proven method of measuring rise and fall time of signals using NI’s High-Speed Digital IO instruments or Digital Pattern Generator devices. Thus, an analog measurement is achieved using a digital generation and acquisition device. How did we achieve that?

this image shows you a proven method of measuring rise and fall time of signals using NI’s High Speed Digital IO instruments or Digital Pattern Generator devices

 

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Written by

Arvind Balachandran

Oct 14, 2018