MD-DAADIO8NAP Kontron Combination Board

The MD-DAADIO reduces system costs by combining high-performance D/A, A/D, and PIO functions on one double-height VMEbus board. Further, the design allows for selective population of the D/A, A/D, and PIO sections to create the most cost-effective combination for a particular application.

The MD-DAADIO provides versatile operational configuration via board control and status registers. Programmable board parameters include interrupt level, vector and source registers, PIO port settings, PIO interrupt mask, along with both D/A and A/D control and data registers.

The MD-DAADIO is an ideal single-board solution for data acquisition and control applications. Its unique combination of I/O functions, flexible configuration, high throughput, and low cost makes the MD-DAADIO an attractive alternative to multiboard solutions.

DAC Section

The DAC module features jumper selection of output mode and voltage range as well as multiplying D/A and current loop capabilities. Each of the eight voltage output channels has a 12-bit digital-to-analog converter.

The fully independent output drive circuitry supports a wide range of output characteristics. With jumper-selected unipolar/bipolar modes and 5V/10V ranges, each channel independently configures to operate at 0 to 5V, 0 to 10V, ±5V, and ±10V ranges. External reference signals allow scaling of unipolar and bipolar D/A outputs to nonstandard ranges. This external reference capability also generates unipolar and bipolar outputs scaled to modulated reference signals for true multiplying D/A capability.

Independently jumpered, each channel interprets digital inputs as straight binary (unipolar), offset binary (bipolar), or two's complement (bipolar) data. On reset and power-up, all output voltages can be driven to zero independent of mode or range. All current loop outputs are driven to the low limit of the selected current loop range. This feature may be disabled for applications where zero volts (or minimum current) does not represent the desired reset value.

A voltage-to-current adapter (VCA) converts any number of channel pairs from voltage operation to current loop operation. The plug-in VCA supports 4-20 mA, 0-20 mA, or 5-25 mA operation.

ADC Section

The ADC section features software gain control and jumper selection of both input mode and voltage range. The A/D converter features 12-bit resolution and 12 µs or 8 µs conversion time.

The analog input module can be configured for 32 single-ended (input channels are referenced to the common analog ground point), 32 pseudo-differential (all channels are referenced to a common point, not necessarily the analog ground), or 16 differential inputs (each channel has its own independent reference input).

Input voltage ranges are jumper selectable and operate at 0-10V, ±5V, and ±10V. Maximum input voltages as high as ±35V can be tolerated without damaging the board. Preset gain factors of 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 10, 20, 40, 80, and 160 are programmed by writing to a register. Gain factors can be dynamically changed between the sampling of different channels to optimize the dynamic range of each input.

PIO Section

The PIO module provides 48 lines of TTL I/O. The six ports of the module are individually configured by software to be either input or output ports. Port A of the PIO module has 8 lines which serve as interrupt sources. Each of these lines can be individually masked and configured for interrupting on pattern recognition or change of state.