National Instruments Announces Its Fastest Data Acquisition Device; New 250 MS/s Digitizer/PC-Based Oscilloscope Adds to NI Family of Digitizers from NI.

AUSTIN, Texas -- Engineers now can use the National Instruments (Nasdaq:NATI) PXI-5114 dual-channel, 8-bit digitizer -- also known as a PC-based oscilloscope -- for a broad range of high-speed validation and manufacturing test applications such as consumer electronics test and semiconductor component test. Starting at just $2,995 (USD), the new digitizer offers an excellent value for the price with a broad range of functionality.

The NI PXI-5114 digitizer provides 250 MS/s real-time and 5 GS/s equivalent-time or random-interleaved sampling with 125 MHz bandwidth for general-purpose time-domain digitization. Engineers can use the module's deep onboard memory of up to 256 MB/channel to store larger waveforms or to store more than 1 million records when using the multi-record acquisition mode. The digitizer also features a variety of triggering options including SDTV/HDTV video triggering, and a wide set of input ranges from 40 mV to 40 V.

The digitizer is built on the NI Synchronization and Memory Core (SMC) architecture, a common foundation for NI digitizers, signal generators and digital waveform generator/analyzers. In addition to deep onboard memory, the SMC architecture also offers engineers high throughput and tight synchronization. SMC-based instruments achieve picosecond-level synchronization accuracy among multiple modules for building high-channel-count systems and creating mixed-signal applications.

As with other NI digitizers, engineers can use the new 250 MS/s digitizer with arbitrary waveform generators and digital waveform generator/analyzers to build mixed-signal applications at any stage in a product's development -- from design and validation to manufacturing test. Design and test engineers can use NI digitizers, such as the NI 5124 200 MS/s 12-bit digitizers, the NI 5122 100 MS/s 14-bit digitizers and the award-winning NI 5922 flexible-resolution digitizers, to rapidly develop a measurement system with the more than 50 measurements that are built in to the NI-SCOPE driver software. All NI digitizers come with this driver, which works with the National Instruments LabVIEW graphical development environment, NI SignalExpress interactive measurement software, NI Measurement Studio for Microsoft Visual Studio .NET and the NI LabWindows/CVI ANSI C development environment.

New NI PXI/PCI Digitizers
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 Digitizer Model  Max Sampling Rate   Bandwidth    Resolution (Bits)
                        (MS/s)           (MHz)
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     NI 5114             250             125               8
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     NI 5124             200             150              12
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     NI 5122             100             100              14
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     NI 5922             15               6       16-24 (user-defined)
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About NI Modular Instruments

NI offers essential technologies for test, which combine high-performance hardware, flexible software and innovative timing and synchronization technology for test and design applications. NI modular instruments offer accurate, high-throughput measurements from DC to 2.7 GHz. The product family includes:

--  High-resolution digitizers (up to 24 bits, up to 250 MS/s)

    --  Signal generators (up to 16 bits, 200 MS/s)

    --  Digital waveform generator/analyzers (up to 400 Mb/s)

    --  Digital multimeters (up to 7 1/2 digits)

    --  RF vector signal generators and analyzers (up to 2.7 GHz)

    --  Dynamic signal analyzers (up to 24 bits, 500 kS/s)

    --  Switching (multiplexers, matrices and general purpose)

About PXI

PCI eXtensions for Instrumentation (PXI) is an open specification governed by the PXI Systems Alliance (www.pxisa.org) that defines a rugged, CompactPCI-based platform optimized for test, measurement and control. It is supported by more than 65 member companies and more than 1,150 products are available. PXI products are compatible with the CompactPCI industrial computer standard and offer additional features such as environmental specifications, standardized software and built-in timing and synchronization.

About National Instruments

National Instruments (www.ni.com) is a technology pioneer and leader in virtual instrumentation -- a revolutionary concept that has changed the way engineers and scientists in industry, government and academia approach measurement and automation. Leveraging PCs and commercial technologies, virtual instrumentation increases productivity and lowers costs for test, control and design applications through easy-to-integrate software, such as NI LabVIEW, and modular measurement and control hardware for PXI, PCI, USB and Ethernet. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, NI has more than 3,600 employees and direct operations in nearly 40 countries. In 2004, the company sold products to more than 25,000 companies in 90 countries. For the past six years, FORTUNE magazine has named NI one of the 100 best companies to work for in America.

Readers can obtain investment information from the company's investor relations department by calling 512-683-5090, e-mailing [e-mail] or visiting www.ni.com/nati.

Pricing and Contact Information

NI PXI-5114 250 MS/s digitizer
Priced from $2,995
Web: www.ni.com/digitizers

11500 N Mopac Expwy, Austin, Texas 78759-3504
Tel: [phone], Fax: [phone]
E-mail: [e-mail]

CVI, LabVIEW, Measurement Studio, National Instruments, NI, ni.com and SignalExpress are trademarks of National Instruments. Other product and company names listed are trademarks or trade names of their respective companies.