Data Acquisition (DAQ) and Control from Microstar Laboratories

DAP 5400a Board Acquires Data at 10 Million Samples per Second

High-Speed Simultaneous Sampling

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Bellevue, WA, July 5, 2002 -- Microstar Laboratories, Inc., maker of Data Acquisition Processor boards, today announced a new DAP board optimized for high-speed simultaneous sampling. The new 16-channel DAP 5400a/626 has eight onboard A/D converters that each can acquire 1250k 14-bit resolution samples per second simultaneously, for an aggregate throughput of 10M samples per second. The board has 128MB of onboard memory for data buffers, and uses DMA bus-mastering to transfer data to the PC.

A DAP 5400a board samples its sixteen inputs in two groups of eight. Applications that require more than eight simultaneously sampled channels can take advantage of the synchronization feature common to all DAP boards. If an application requires sixteen simultaneous inputs, each acquiring data at 1250k samples per second, then two synchronized DAP 5400a boards, installed in a single PC, can deliver the aggregate throughput of 20M samples per second shared by these sixteen simultaneous inputs. A system that contains five synchronized DAP 5400a boards provides 40 simultaneous channels, a throughput of 50M samples per second, and onboard memory of 640MB.

The new DAP 5400a model runs DAPL 2000: the multitasking real-time operating system for PC-based data acquisition and control, the onboard intelligence that comes with every DAP. A user normally controls DAPL through Windows (XP, 2000, NT, ME, 95, 98) -- either locally or over a network -- using DAPcell client software and a Windows application like LabVIEW or Visual Basic. Every standard DAP model in current production also will run under Linux. DAPL itself runs on the onboard processor that every DAP uses to perform data acquisition and control tasks in real time, free from any delays imposed by the operating system or by other software running on the local server hardware.

Onboard intelligence not only protects against local delays, it allows synchronization between hardware in different PCs on a network over a parallel DAP-to-DAP network independent of other network delays. Microstar Laboratories has shipped systems like this on third-party server hardware with many hundreds of channels.

The DAPtools Basic CD, shipped by default with every DAP board, contains all software and hardware manuals for all Microstar Laboratories products -- including the DAP 5400a/626 -- and full documentation for DAPcell software. You can download the DAPtools CD. Or, in North America, call toll-free: 888 MSTARLABS (888 678-2752).

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Editorial Overview:

Microstar Laboratories, Inc., maker of Data Acquisition Processor boards, today announced a new DAP board optimized for high-speed simultaneous sampling. The new DAP 5400a/626 has a 128MB data buffer and eight onboard A/D converters that each can acquire 1250k 14-bit resolution samples per second simultaneously, for an aggregate throughput of 10M samples per second. An onboard operating system allows real-time work under Windows (XP, 2000, NT, ME, 95, 98) and a user interface in Visual Basic, LabVIEW, or other software, free from PC-related delays. Real-time functions include software triggering, data reduction, filtering, FFT, and order analysis. Available hardware and software synchronizes two or more boards within the same PC or over a network for applications with a large number of simultaneous channels.

Note to the Editor:

Microstar Laboratories, Inc. claims Microstar Laboratories, Data Acquisition Processor, DAP, DAP 5400a, DAPcell, and DAPL as trademarks.

Microsoft Corporation has registered Microsoft, Visual Basic, Windows, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows ME, Windows XP, and Windows NT as trademarks. Linus Torvalds, the original author of the Linux kernel has registered Linux as a trademark. National Instruments Corporation has registered LabVIEW as a trademark. These and other individuals or organizations may claim -- or may have registered -- as trademarks any trade names, logos, and service marks that appear in this document but not in the list above.

Microstar Laboratories makes it a practice to use an appropriate symbol at the first occurrence of a trademark or registered trademark name in a document, or to include trademark statements like this with the document.