Serial boards

National Instruments has announced eight RS232/485 serial interfaces that deliver features such as flexible baud rates up to 1 Mbps and universal PCI, hyperthreading and multiprocessor support.

The improved speed and flexibility of the NI 843x family of serial boards, combined with the recently released LabVIEW 7.1 I/O Assistant, are claimed to offer increased productivity for serial applications such as machine control, manufacturing test and traditional instrument control.

The family delivers flexible baud rate capabilities that engineers can use to communicate with devices that operate with non-standard baud rates ranging from 57 bps to 1 Mbps.

The boards also work with devices such as mobile phones that require communication using both standard and non-standard baud rates.

With multiprocessor and hyperthreading support, engineers can also take advantage of the latest PC technology for higher speeds and improved efficiency.

The driver software included with the boards offers better resource allocation and universal PCI support for 3.3 and 5 V I/O, as well as DMA access for higher throughput with minimal CPU usage.

In addition, the family includes memory mapping features that engineers can use to connect to more serial devices without resource conflicts.