Handshaking between SMU and Switch

[Eciusea]

I'm using the PXI-2532 Switch and the PXI-4132 SMU and trying to get them to work together in LabVIEW. I want to source a voltage sequence, measure the current at each point, advance one step in the scan list and repeat the same sequence and measurement.

Can this be done via Hardware triggering on the Backplane?

Can you give me any hint on what exactly the SMU and Switch have to be configured? 

[Duffy2007]

Hello Eciusea,

have you found this

SMU Switch Handshaking with Pulsing

[Eciusea]

Hi Alexander,

i've found this and tried it out. But sadly the PXI-4132 does not support pulsing mode

[Duffy2007]

Hello Eciusea,

which diver, which chassi and in which slots are the modules mounted?

What is the error you get?

From the help pulsing should be supported.

[Eciusea]

This is from the link you posted at the bottom (when i read it the first time i got it wrong to):

Support for Pulsing

The following devices do NOT support this feature:

• NI PXI-4110
• NI PXIe-4112/4113
• NI PXI-4130
• NI PXI-4132
• NI PXIe-4140/4141/4142/4143/4144/4145
• NI PXIe-4154

Best regards

[Duffy2007]

Hello Eciusea,

sorry this was my mistake. If we do not have this Option, then you only have the option for software timed switching.

[Michael5000Watts]

Hi All,

I want to clarify a few points, because switch handshaking should work fine with a 4132 SMU. Pulsing isn't directly related to switch handshaking. Pulsing allows an SMU to temporarily operate beyond the DC I-V boundary. For example, the 4139 System SMU can generate a short pulse (as short as 50 microseconds) up to 500 W, which is well beyond the DC power boundary of 20 W. However, this has nothing to do with switch handshaking. The referenced example just happens to use both technologies (switch handshaking and pulsing).

In order to handshake any PXI instrument with a switch, the only requirement on the instrument is to support traditional PXI trig triggers. The NI-SWITCH driver includes a Switch Handshaking example, but it is uses a DMM as the example instrument. The "SMU Switch Handshaking with Pulsing" example is a decent starting point, but the SMU measurement configuration portion will need to be changed from "Pulse Voltage" settings to normal "DC Voltage" source mode. The next section of the SMU configuration flow deals with trigger routing, which is good code and should remain for your application. 

I do not have code that you can reference, but I will try to take some screenshots of the code and send some recommendations in a later post. Hopefully, my explanation will give you some extra info to help you get moving in the right direction. 

[Michael5000Watts]

Okay. I took a first pass at modifying the "SMU Switch Handshaking with Pulsing" example to remove the "pulsing" part but keep the SMU/Switch Handshaking part. Take a look at the attached code and see if everything makes sense. Please keep in mind that I did NOT test this code using actual hardware. I simply modified the programming flow based on my theoretical knowledge. 

The attached Code is provided As Is. It has not been tested or validated as a product, for use in a deployed application or system, or for use in hazardous environments. You assume all risks for use of the Code and use of the Code is subject to the Sample Code License Terms which can be found at: http://ni.com/samplecodelicense.

[Eciusea]

Hello Mike,

thanks so much for your example. Just checked it with the hardware and sadly getting a timeout error at the "niDCPower Wait For Event VI". I've checked the trigger setting but can't figure it our. After measuring I found that the switch only connects the first entry of the scanlist and and SMU does one sequence iteration. After that it all stops. So my guess would that the trigger lines are not reading correctly.

I've come up with a software trigger solution that seems to work though. See the attached code

Best Regards

[marshallg]

Depending on your setup you might be running into devices on different trigger segments.

There's a way to configure the segments in MAX:

Routing PXI Trigger Lines Across the Buses of Multisegment PXI Chassis