FYS3240

PC-based instrumentation and microcontrollers

Computer buses and interfaces

Spring 2011 – Lecture #5

Bekkeng 15.1.2011
The most common data acquisition
buses available today
Internal computer buses
• Internal bus connectors (card slots) makes it
possible to insert peripheral electronic
boards
• Important buses today:
– PCI
– PCI Express
PCI
• PCI = (Peripheral Component Interconnect)
• Supports 32 and 64 bits
• Shared parallel bus!
• Maximum bandwidth (peak) of 133 MB/s (32-
bits at 33 MHz)
• 33 MHz and 66 MHz versions
• Theoretical maximum of 532 MB/s (64 bits at
66 MHz)
• However, anything above 32 bits and
33 MHz is only seen in high-end systems)
PCI-X
• Satisfied the higher bandwidth demanded by servers
• Running at up to four times the clock speed of PCI
(33 MHz x 4), but is otherwise similar in electrical
implementation and uses the same protocol
• Maximum bandwidth of 1064 MB/s (64-bit at 133
MHz)
• Parallel interface
• PCI-X has been replaced in modern designs by PCI
Express
 PCI Express (PCIe)
• A point-to-point serial bus, rather than a shared parallel bus
architecture
• PCIe slots may contain from one to thirty-two lanes, in powers
of two (1, 2, 4, 8, 16 and 32).
• Dedicated bandwith for each device/slot
– x1 : bandwith of 250 MB/s (duplex)
– x4 : bandwith of 1 GB/s (duplex)
– x16: bandwith of 4 GB/s (duplex)
 CompactPCI
• It is electrically a superset of PCI with a different (smaller) physical
form factor
• CompactPCI supports twice as many PCI slots
• Compact PCI cards are designed for front loading and removal from a
card cage. The cards are firmly held in position by card guides on both
sides, and a face plate which solidly screws into the card cage.
• Cards are mounted vertically allowing for natural or forced air
convection for cooling
• Better shock and vibration characteristics than the card edge
connector of the standard PCI cards
• Allows hot swapping, a feature that is very important for fault tolerant
systems and which is not possible with standard PCI.
PXI and PXI-Express
• PXI = PCI eXtensions for Instrumentation (PXI)
• National Instruments developed and announced the
PXI specification in 1997
• Based on and compatible with CompactPCI
• PXI defines a rugged PC-based platform for
measurement and automation systems
• Gives the ability to expand your system far beyond
the capacity of a desktop computer with a PCI/PCIe
bus.
• One of the most important benefits PXI offers is its
integrated timing and triggering features. Without
any external connections, multiple devices can be
synchronized by using the internal buses resident on
the backplane of a PXI chassis
• By taking advantage of PCI Express technology in the
backplane, PXI Express increases the available PXI
bandwidth from 132 MB/s to 8 GB/s
PCMCIA (PC Card)
• PCMCIA = Personal Computer Memory Card International
Association
• “PC Card” is the name used for PCMCIA 2.0
• PCMCIA is the form factor of a peripheral interface designed for
laptop computers
• Commonly used for DAQ cards, network cards and modems for
laptops
• Maximum data rate:
– PCMCIA : 7.8 MB/s
– PC card : 133 MB/s

• Parallell bus, 32 bit wide

• Successor : ExpressCard
– Serial bus
– 480 Mb/s (USB 2.0 mode) or 2.6 Gb/s (PCIe mode)
 Towards serial buses
- PCI Express, USB, SATA ...

• High speed data transfer on long cables: the bits on

different wires may not reach the receiver circuit exactly
at the same time. Not the case on serial lines  may
increase speed without problems
• Crosstalk between lines at high frequency is avoided by
using one or two data lines only
• Hence, parallel cables are more expensive in
production
• Serial internal buses give less motherboard routing,
simpler layout and smaller dimensions
• PCIe is just one example of a general trend away from
parallel buses to serial interconnects.
• Other examples include Serial ATA (SATA) USB, SAS
(Serial Attached SCSI) and FireWire
External computer ports and buses
• RS-232
• RS-422 Not directly available on the
computer, but a converter attached to
• RS485 USB or RS-232 can be used
• USB
• FireWire (IEEE 1394)
 Serial port: RS-232
• Point-to-point interface Data

• Single-ended data transmission Startbit BIT 0 BIT 1

• Common bit frequencies are from 8 16 16 16

16X
9.6 kHz up to 115.2 kHz (or higher) klokke

• Maximum cable length (rule of thumb)

is about 15 -20 meters at full speed Data: +(3-25 V) (0)
-(3-25 V) (1)
– depends on cable capacitance Control: -(3-25 V) (0)
• Maximum data rate about 20 Kbit/s +(3-25 V) (1)

• Minimal 3-wire connection is:

– Rx, Tx and GND (two way data flow)

• Common ground (between transmitter

and receiver)
– Can create noise problems
RS-422

• Multi-drop interface with a single transmitter but multiple

receivers
• Differential data transmission (balanced transmission)
– Cancel out the effects of ground shifts and induced noise signals
that can appear as common mode voltages on a network
• Maximum cable length (rule of thumb) is about 1200 meters
• Maximum data rate is 10 Mbit/s
– Depends on cable length
RS-485
• Upgraded version of RS-422
• Multi-point network consists of multiple
drivers and receivers
USB (Universal Serial Bus )
• Theoretical maximum data rates:
 USB 1.0 – Jan 96 : 12 Mb/s
 USB 1.1 – Sep 98 : 12 Mb/s
 USB 2.0 – Apr 2000 : 480 Mb/s
 USB 3.0 – Aug 2008 : 5.0 Gb/s (SuperSpeed)
commercially available in 2010

• Maximum cable length of 5 meters

•Differential signaling (twisted pairs)

 +5V 0V D+ D-

• Possible solutions (?) to increase the cable length:

• USB hubs as active USB repeater(s)
• Active Cables (bus-powered, one-port hubs)
FireWire – IEEE 1394

Theoretical maximum data rates:

• 1394a-2000 (FireWire 400) : 400 Mb/s
• 1394b-2002 (FireWire 800) : 800 Mb/s
– FireWire S1600 and S3200 (2007)
• 1.6 and 3.2 Gb/s (compete with USB 3.0)
• Commercial available in 2010
• 1394c-2006 : 800Mb/s over Ethernet-cable

• Used for digital video equipment

• Cable length is limited to 4.5 meters, although up to 16 cables can be
daisy chained using active repeaters up to a total cable length of
72 meters
• Not as common as USB!
 GPIB/IEEE-488
• GPIB = General Purpose Interface Bus
• 8-bit, parallel bus (shared bandwidth)
• Every device on the bus has a unique 5-bit
address (in the range from 0 to 30)
• The standard allows up to 15 devices to share a
single physical bus of up to 20 meters total cable
length
• Active extenders allow longer buses, with up to 31
devices
• The maximum data rate is about 1 MB/s.
• The later HS-488 extension allows up to 8 MB/s
• Used in laboratory setups, for control and data
transfer (for more than 30 years)
• Enables networking of instruments for
automation of experimental setup
VXI
• Based on the VME bus
– A multi-processor bus
– Used in the high-end (and high cost) market
– For the professional market, primarily in industrial, military, aerospace,
communication and control applications, in particular where robustness
is required
– Expensive and power hungry
• VXI stands for VME eXtensions for Instrumentation
• Has additional bus lines for timing and triggering
• Maximum data rate of 160 MB/s
• The basic building block of a VXI system is the mainframe or chassis
• Because VXI is based on the older VME bus, which is not a part of
modern computer architectures, it cannot take complete advantage
of the advances in PC technology and thus bring the benefits of
mainstream software, lower cost, and high performance to the end
user
 Ethernet network
• LAN (local area network)
– a computer network that connects computers and devices in a limited
geographical area
• 1000BASE-T (IEEE 802.3ab) is a standard for gigabit Ethernet
over copper wiring
– Theoretical maximum data rate of 125 MB/s
– Each network segment can have a maximum length of 100 meters
– If longer cables are required, the use of active hardware such as
repeaters, or switches, is necessary
– Must use Category 5 cable or better (4 twisted, usually unshielded)
pairs)

RJ45
Ethernet network
• Category 6 cable (Cat 6)
– today standard for Gigabit Ethernet
– backward compatible with the Category 5/5e
– suitable for 10-Gigabit Ethernet (10GBASE-T)
• PC connection to an Ethernet network
– NIC (Network Interface Controller/Card) for PCI or PCIe
– Every NIC has a unique 48-bit serial number (MAC address)
stored in a ROM

PCIe x4
dual port NIC
Unicast, multicast and broadcast in
computer networks
• Unicast
– sending of messages (packages) to a
single network destination identified by a
unique address.

• Multicast
– sends data only to interested destinations
by using special address assignments

• Broadcast
– transmitting the same data to all possible
destinations (every device on the
network)
 LXI
http://www.lxistandard.org/

• LXI = LAN eXtensions for Instrumentation

• The LXI standard defines the communication protocols for
instrumentation and data acquisition systems using Ethernet
• Synchronization based on IEEE 1588 Precision Timing Protocol
• Three LXI device classes:
– C : baseline with LAN capabilities, web interface, and IVI drivers
– B : adds expanded triggering, such as multicast and peer-to-peer
communications between instruments and time-based trigger events
– A : adds a wired trigger bus for precision triggering
• With support for LXI you can control instruments and monitor
measurements remotely.
• Ideal for distributed systems and remote monitoring

IVI = Interchangeable Virtual Instrument

Bus bandwidth and latency
comparison
Comparison - setup
Comparison - Distributed Capability
Comparison - Ruggedness
Hybrid system architecture
• Often beneficial to combine multiple instrumentation buses
• No bus is perfect for all needs and applications
• Use available instrument control hardware for GPIB, USB,
Ethernet, LXI, LAN etc.
http://ni.com/icfundamentals
Differential signaling & twisted pairs

• Two wires carry equal and opposite signals and the receiver detects the
difference between the two.
• Noise sources introduce signals into the wires by coupling of electric or
magnetic fields and tend to couple to both wires equally. The noise thus
produces a common-mode signal which is cancelled at the receiver .
• This method starts to fail when the noise source is close to the signal wires; the
closer wire will couple with the noise more strongly and the common-mode
rejection of the receiver will fail to eliminate it. This problem is especially
apparent in long cables as one pair can induce crosstalk in another, and it is
additive along the length of the cable.
• Twisting the pairs counters this effect as on each half twist the wire nearest to
the noise-source is exchanged. Providing the interfering source remains
uniform, the induced noise will remain common-mode.
• The twist rate (twists per meter) makes up part of the specification for a given
type of cable. Where nearby pairs have equal twist rates, the same conductors
of the different pairs may repeatedly lie next to each other, partially undoing the
benefits of differential mode. For this reason it is commonly specified that, at
least for cables containing small numbers of pairs, the twist rates must differ.