08-13-2006 04:48 PM
08-14-2006 09:49 AM
Hi Brad,
Good question. The PXI backplane is packed full of trigger, clock, and control lines. This is what lets your DMM and Switch handshake or lets your DAQ card control the SCXI portion of your chassis. However, all analog signal lines always are connected to the front of your device; either the banana plugs of your DMM or to the terminal block of your DAQ card.
The reason for this is mainly standardization and availability of space on the backplane. The PXI digital lines in the backplane are all standardized according to PXISA (PXI Systems Alliance) standards. However, an analog line can be of vastly varying quality depending on the signal you are trying to measure and the backplane simply can't accomodate a lot of extra lines to accomodate these different types of lines.
Hope this helps!
B Spears