National Instruments NI 5401 Manuel D’Utilisation

Chapter 2

Function Generator Operation

©

 National Instruments Corporation

2-15

The NI 5401 can receive a hardware trigger from another board as a RTSI 
trigger signal on any of the RTSI/PXI trigger lines.

You can also route signals as follows:

•

Route the Start Trigger signal generated on the NI 5401 to other boards 
through any of the RTSI/PXI bus trigger lines.

•

Route the SYNC output generated on the NI 5401 to other boards 
through any of the RTSI/PXI bus trigger lines.You can use this signal 
to give other boards an accurate and fine frequency resolution clock.

♦

For frequency locking to other boards as a master, the NI 5401 sends an 
onboard 20 MHz signal to the RTSI Osc line as a board clock signal. For 
locking to other devices as a slave, the NI 5401 receives the RTSI Osc line 
as a RTSI clock signal. 

♦

For frequency locking to other boards, the NI 5401 for PXI receives the 
PXI backplane 10 MHz Osc as a reference clock signal. All the NI 5401s 
for PXI use this common signal as the reference clock for frequency 
locking.

Refer to your software documentation for selecting and routing signals to the 

RTSI/PXI trigger bus.

Calibration is the process of minimizing measurement errors by making 
small circuit adjustments. On the NI 5401, NI-FGEN automatically makes 
these adjustments by retrieving predetermined constants from the onboard 
EEPROM, calculating correction values, and writing those values to the 
CalDACs.

National Instruments calibrates all NI 5401 devices to the levels indicated 
in Appendix A, 

. Factory calibration involves procedures 

such as nulling the offset and gain errors. However, since offset and gain 
errors may drift with time and temperature, you may need to recalibrate 
your device. Contact National Instruments to recalibrate your NI 5401.