AUSTIN, USA: National Instruments announced the NI PXI-8108, the industry's fastest PXI embedded controller, and two new PXI system accessories, a 32GB solid-state hard drive and the NI PXI-8250 system monitoring module. These new products provide increased system performance and reliability to help engineers and scientists achieve faster process execution, lower test times and longer system life.

The PXI-8108 embedded controller, which features an Intel Core 2 Duo T9400 processor, is designed for high-performance PXI and CompactPCI systems. With its 2.53 GHz dual-core processor and 800 MHz DDR2 memory, the PXI-8108 offers a 25 percent performance improvement over its dual-core predecessor, the NI PXI-8106, and a two times performance improvement over its single-core predecessor, the NI PXI-8196.

With NI LabVIEW 8.6 software, engineers and scientists can take full advantage of the latest multicore controllers, such as the PXI-8108, by simplifying multithreaded application development and achieving increased performance without requiring major changes to existing LabVIEW code. The PXI-8108 also works with the NI LabVIEW Real-Time and LabWindows/CVI Real-Time modules to deliver a flexible, lasting platform for deterministic and real-time measurement and control.

"By leveraging the multicore technology in LabVIEW and the latest NI multicore PXI embedded controller, we were able to increase our test throughput by one additional workday per week," said Alejandro Torres, senior manufacturing test engineer at Sanmina-SCI. "Best of all, we achieved this throughput increase by simply upgrading from a previous-generation PXI single-core embedded controller to the latest NI PXI multicore embedded controller with only minimal changes to our code."

For engineers and scientists requiring maximum performance and reliability, the NI PXI-8108 controller can be upgraded to include a 32GB PXI solid-state hard drive instead of the standard rotating magnetic disk drive. The PXI-8108 paired with the 32GB solid-state hard drive offers an extended operating temperature range of zero to 55 degrees C, increased reliability and speed when reading and writing to files and streaming data and increased durability when exposed to shock and vibration due to no moving parts. Additionally, all the latest NI PXI and PXI Express Windows and real-time embedded controllers can be upgraded to use the new 32GB solid-state hard drive.

To maximize the efficiency and overall life of a PXI system, NI now offers the PXI-8250 system monitoring module. With this module, engineers and scientists can monitor system intake and exhaust temperatures, fan speeds, processor and memory utilization and power supply voltage levels programmatically. Front-panel LEDs on the PXI-8250 indicate if parameters are within their appropriate operating ranges, and a relay on the front panel provides connectivity to external devices such as a status light or alarm.