TE5300 Tabor Electronics 125 MS/s PCIBus Arbitrary Waveform / Function Generator

The Tabor Electronics 5300 125 MS/s PCIBus Arbitrary Waveform / Function Generator is a single-channel arbitrary waveform / function generator that combines many powerful functions in one small package.

The 5300 is a sensible alternative to a GPIB-based waveform generator when developing a PCI based test system. The 5300 provides a synergistic combination of a function generator, arbitrary waveform synthesizer, programmable sequencer, pulse generator, and modulation generator in one instrument. The 5300 delivers all this at a lower cost than comparable bench-type, or VXIbased instruments. This versatility ensures that the 5300 will adapt to future testing needs as well as current ones.

New technology requirements are driving communications systems to use increasingly narrow channel width. A sample rate of 125MS/s makes the 5300 an ideal modulation source for troubleshooting new encoding schemes. The 5300 also provides high-speed waveforms to simulate signal distortion, power line cycle dropouts, video signals, component failures and power supply transients.

The 14-bit resolution provides 16,384 output levels. This means that even audio waveforms can be generated with excellent fidelity. It also allows video - and other complex waveforms - to be generated with small details superimposed on large signals, in order to test the response of receiving systems.

The 5300 provides 2M of waveform memory as standard, far more than competitive models. This waveform memory is accessible via a high-speed interface. Also, waveform memory is segmentable, allowing the storage of up to 4096 different waveforms of variable size. This allows test software to switch between many different waveforms rapidly and without having to download multiple times, enhancing test throughput in a way that cannot be duplicated by other competing products.

Powerful sequencing capability allows linkage of up to 4096 waveform segments and/or bursts (repeated segments) into strings. A segment can be repeated up to 128k times in burst mode. Sequenced functions run continuously or are initiated by a trigger. It is also possible to mix continuous and triggered segments within one sequence. These sequencing features permit the creation of complex waveform or pulse patterns using minimal amounts of memory. Sequences are created by writing a sequence table. Sequence table download is extremely fast because ArbConnection writes to registers and does not require the overhead of an embedded controller.

The last but not least is flexibility of the 5300 as an Arbitrary Waveform Generator. Combined with the power of ArbConnection, there is no limit to what you can create and generate. Waveform coordinates can be imported from a variety of sources such as MATLAB, ASCII files etc. Anything you can show on one of the composer screens is downloaded in a split of a second and generated by the main output.

The 5300 has outstanding low phase noise characteristics and carrier stability. Such characteristics are very much needed for telecommunication and channel separation applications. On the other hand, the output of the 5300 can be made extremely agile for applications needing sweep, FSK and FM. The sample clock of the instrument is derived from a DDS (Direct Digital Synthesis) circuit so controlling instantaneous frequency is a matter of changing its input bits. You, as a user, should not really care how it is done but the end result is magnificent: functions like wide-band FM, wander, linear and logarithmic sweep are easily created and executed by the generator.

A unique and extremely useful feature of ArbConnection is the FM Composer. The FM composer screen looks very much like the Wave Composer screen except the "Y" axis is given in units of frequency, so waveforms you create using the FM composer generate frequency change over time. You can create any arbitrary waveform shape or even use the equation editor to generate exotic shapes which eventually you can use to frequency modulate your main output.

Place two or more 5300`s in a chassis and harness the power of multi-instrument synchronization to create multiple, phase-controlled output channels. Then vary module-to-module phase offsets to create multi-phase signal source.