National Instruments PXIe-8115 embedded controller

National Instruments has announced the NI PXIe-8115 high-performance embedded controller featuring a 2.5 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor, which helps reduce test times and supports multicore applications.

The NI PXIe-8115 controller features six USB 2.0 ports, minimising the need for external peripheral adapters to help engineers build cost-effective hybrid systems. To improve the serviceability and minimise downtime, the NI PXIe-8115 embedded controller features In-ROM and hard drive diagnostics to determine the controller’s health. By combining the controller with NI LabVIEW system design software, engineers can gain efficiency in a variety of test, measurement and control applications.

The Intel Core i5-2510E processor uses Intel Turbo Boost Technology to automatically increase the clock frequency based on the application type. For example, when running applications that generate only a single processing thread, the CPU places the one unused core into an idle state and increases the active core’s clock frequency from 2.5 GHz to 3.1 GHz. This feature removes the need for software applications to be multithreaded to use the latest CPU developments.

In addition, the controller has two display ports to connect to multiple monitors, dual gigabit ethernet ports and GPIB, as well as serial and parallel ports. For memory-intensive applications, the controller comes standard with 2 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 memory with up to 8 GB of maximum memory and support for the Windows 7 64-bit operating system. The NI PXIe-8115 controller combined with the NI PXIe-1082 chassis is suitable for intensive analysis, signal and image processing and high-speed data acquisition.