National Instruments PCI-6711 Analog Output Device

National Instruments created the PCI-6711 (Part Number: 777740-01), a high-speed, flexible analog output device designed for a range of control and waveform output applications in industrial automation. With its simultaneous multichannel updates, it is perfect for deterministic control, power supply management, stimulus-response, and sensor/signal modeling jobs. It has extensive capability with eight 5 V TTL/CMOS digital I/O lines, two 24 bit, 20 MHz counter/timers, and digital triggering capabilities. The PCI‑6711 can replace standalone PID controllers, low-speed arbitrary waveform generators, and function generators.

It makes it possible to precisely manipulate every data point in order to define both complex and common waveforms, such as sine, square, or sawtooth. With its 12-bit digital-to-analog converter (DAC) per channel, this device can be used with PXI, PCI, or CompactPCI. It can update voltage outputs at up to Ms/S/channel. Two 24-bit counter/timers are also included for timing I/O, in addition to eight lines of TTL-compatible digital I/O.

Notably, the PCI‑6711 is switchless and jumperless, thanks to the National Instruments MITE bus interface chip, which connects it to the PCI I/O bus. This feature simplifies setup as interrupts and base memory addresses are software-configured. The 6711 makes use of the National Instruments DAQ-STC system timing controller for time-related operations. This timing controller consists of three timing groups that manage general-purpose counter/timer and analog output functions. It provides up to 50 ns of timing resolution.

The PCI-6711 has a Real-Time System Integration (RTSI) bus to help with synchronization issues. This bus allows timing and trigger signals to be routed between different features. In response to a shared trigger or timing event, this guarantees smooth coordination of measurement operations. In terms of the PCI-6711's output features, it provides 12 bits (1 in 4,096) of resolution through 8 voltage outputs for 6713 devices and 4 voltage outputs for 6711 devices.