The D&TT Measurement Electronics package is a general purpose Ethernet interfaced eight channel analog instrument which provides both measurement and real-time data processing on each of the eight independent channels.

Each channel includes an input buffer with anti-aliasing filter and programmable gain, a 12-bit, 200 MSPS ADC, as well as a programmable DSP filter and Altera Stratix II FPGA for custom real-time data processing.

The package includes two MB3 measurement boards, analog and digital buffer boards, and a Linux-based microprocessor board for local control.

This instrument package has been used to provide state of the art measurement capability for high-speed testing of magnetic heads and media test systems such as Ultrium LTO-4.

The complete instrument, including power supplies,  is supplied in a 19 inch rack mountable drawer, 17.5 inch high, and is intended for OEM use.  Typically, D&TT will integrate the first Tester with the customer's product and provide a LabVIEW-based host interface as a turnkey project.

In addition to this specification summary for a test system, a downloadable document containing a full technical description and specifications for MeasureBoard3 is also available in PDF format.
For more information, please go to the White Papers page.

MB3 measurement board

The following system capabilities are provided:

1. Programmable input gains - allows the unit to work over a wide range of input amplitudes.
2. High speed (200MSPS) 12-bit ADCs - designed for very high spectral purity to support accurate spectral analysis in addition to standard waveform analysis.
3. Programmable serial data generators - each of the 8 channels has an independent, programmable digital data generator. Each data generator supports user-defined patterns up to 8Mb in length, with the data rate set by a low-jitter programmable PLL-based clock.
4. Programmable digital bandpass filters - provides 16-bit resolution analysis on all 8 channels independently and simultaneously. Each filter has a fully programmable passband, allowing the user to use a standard 'brickwall' passband or a passband matching a selected analog instrument in order to achieve optimum correlation with that analog instrument. Measurements can be performed using any user-selected set of frequencies and bandwidths and can be controlled to occur within user-specified timing windows as short as a few milliseconds (essential for loop or drum testing applications).
5. Programmable FPGA for real-time data processing - Each of the 8 channels provides its own Altera Stratix II FPGA for independent preprocessing and for real-time analysis of waveforms. A number of algorithms are currently available for the Altera Stratix II field programmable gate array, including:

   Peak detection - This configuration records the amplitude and timing of all peaks in the waveform using our patented peak detection technique (U.S patent #5,987,392) that allows accurate determination of both the peak amplitude and peak location even if the peak occurs between ADC samples.

   Peak amplitude histogram – This configuration can build a histogram of all the peak amplitudes, positive and negative, for millions of waveform cycles, thereby reducing Gigabytes of waveform data to a histogram of only a few thousand bytes.

   Full bandwidth true-RMS measurements are available in real time.

   Sequential bandpass measurements can be performed over contiguous time intervals, allowing the measurement of the time-varying amplitude of any given frequency component.  The duration of each measurement interval is programmable over a wide range.

   Dropout analysis – This package compares each individual signal peak against a tracking threshold computed from the average amplitude of the read signal, using a programmable sample length for the averaging operation.  The output is a list of all amplitude dropouts below the tracking threshold, giving their position and length.  (This algorithm has been used to implement the dropout test specified in the ECMA-319 standard for tape media analysis).

   A similar ‘drop-in’ test is also available to detect the presence of extra-pulses. It is essentially a mirror image of the above dropout test.  This algorithm will resolve the peak amplitude and time stamp the initial and final threshold crossing.  This test is typically specified, for instance by IDEMA, for the “…detection and sizing of the [magnetic media] defect…”