The dual-core PXI controller boosts the performance of multithreaded applications by a factor of two compared to single-core PXI controllers with the same processor clock rate. Multithreaded applications for the controller can be developed in LabView software. The dual-core processor also handles multichannel, multirate data-logging applications by running data acquisition and data storage to the hard drive in parallel for high performance. The controller uses the Mobile Intel 945GM Express chipset, which also includes the PCI Express bus. This feature lets peripheral functions integrated onto the controller, such as Gigabit Ethernet, enough bandwidth to operate at a full rate while communicating with and processing data from PXI modules using the PCI bus. Other standard peripherals include four USB 2.0 ports, GPIB, serial and parallel. The new controller also features 512 Mbytes of dual-channel 667-MHz DDR2 memory standard, analog and digital DVI-I video and a 60-Gbyte serial ATA hard drive.
National Instruments Corp., 11500 N. Mopac Expressway, Austin, TX 78759, (800) 258-7022, ni.com/pxi