10/22/21, 3:01 PM Digital I/O for Test, Control, and Design - NI

Digital I/O for Test, Control, and Design

Updated Sep 3, 2020

Overview

Whether generating advanced patterns to characterize a custom circuit, toggling control lines to automate a factory floor,
or prototyping a digital design, many applications require some degree of digital input and output capability. National
Instruments provides a wide range of digital I/O (DIO) products with a variety of speed, voltage, and timing options to
meet the digital needs of your test, control, and design applications.

Contents
Digital I/O for Test and Measurement
Digital I/O for Industrial Control and Automation
Digital I/O for Design and Prototyping
Related Links

Digital I/O for Test and Measurement

Most digital automated test equipment (ATE) systems generate and/or acquire patterns of 1’s and 0’s to communicate with
a device under test (DUT). With recent innovations in digital components, however, these systems require a more
sophisticated digital tester with capabilities beyond a simple logic analyzer with two on/off states. Faster chip speeds and
the industry trend toward serial versus parallel digital protocols are necessitating ever higher sampling rates. In addition,
manufacturing and time-to-market pressures are demanding hardware-level processing to complete tests quicker.
Meanwhile, new logic families with variable voltage levels and single or differential signaling continue to make these tests
more complex. National Instruments high-speed digital I/O (HSDIO) devices offer a range of digital ATE and stimulus-
response features designed to meet the requirements of these high-end digital test applications.

High clock and data rates up to 200 MHz and 400 Mb/s, respectively, deliver precise hardware-timed control
essential for testing the latest integrated circuits, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), and digital communication
devices.
Per-cycle, per-channel bidirectional control and real-time hardware comparison of acquired response data
facilitate the development of applications such as bit error rate testing (BERT), failure analysis for verification and
validation (V&V), and pass/fail manufacturing tests.
Programmable voltage levels between -2.0 and 5.5 V create a flexible digital system that can interface with multiple
logic families or characterize the upper and lower bounds of specific DUT.

Figure 1. Programmable Voltage Levels

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Six logical channel states including logic low (0), logic high (1), tri-state (Z), compare logic high (H), compare logic
low (L), and ignore (X) define digital test waveforms and control the actions of the digital tester.
Multidevice synchronization offers down to subnanosecond synchronization for high-channel-count systems
without the need for external wiring.
Flexible handshaking modes provide synchronous and asynchronous exchange of signals to request and
acknowledge data transfers between the test system and DUT.

Software is also a critical piece of any digital ATE. The NI Digital Waveform Editor is a graphical software tool you can use
to visualize digital signals and easily create, edit, and modify digital waveforms for customized interfacing and test
applications. You can design digital waveforms from scratch or import existing waveforms from design tools using Value
Change Dump (.VCD) or ASCII file formats. In addition, as you acquire data, the Digital Waveform Editor can highlight bit
errors, making it easy to visualize inconsistencies and measure timing requirements or update waveforms to eliminate
design flaws. Combined with the NI LabVIEW graphical development environment and NI TestStand test management
software, the Digital Waveform Editor completes the software component of any digital test system.

Table 1 summarizes the National Instruments high-speed digital I/O offering.

Max
Max Data Voltage Number of
Family Bus Onboard
Rate Levels Channels
Memory

NI 656x PCI, PXI 400 Mb/s LVDS 16 128 Mb/ch

Programmable
NI 655x PCI, PXI 100 Mb/s 20 64 Mb/ch
-2.0 to 5.5 V

5.0, 3.3, 2.5,

NI 654x PCI, PXI 100 Mb/s 32 64 Mb/ch
1.8 V

PCI, PCI
Express, PXI, 2.5, 3.3 V (5 V
NI 653x 50 Mb/s 32 32 Mb/ch
PXI Express, compatible)
PCMCIA

Table 1. National Instruments High-Speed Digital I/O Offering

For more information on NI high-speed digital I/O, visit ni.com/hsdio.

Digital I/O for Industrial Control and Automation

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Industrial applications often involve requirements beyond the capabilities of a typical measurement device. For example,
many industrial sensors and actuators require 24 V logic levels and may operate at different voltage potentials that can
cause ground loops. Safety for the measurement or control system and safety for the user or operator are equally
important. With voltage levels up to 150 V, high current drive, and isolation, NI industrial digital I/O devices can connect
directly to a wide array of industrial pumps, valves, motors, and other sensors/actuators while providing a high degree of
safety and reliability.

Figure 2. Industrial Measurements with 24 V Logic Levels and Isolation

These low-cost devices are ideal for industrial control and manufacturing test systems such as factory automation,
embedded machine control, and production line verification. Furthermore, NI industrial digital I/O devices deliver a high-
reliability industrial feature set designed to automate even the most demanding applications:

Isolation reduces noise, offers an extended voltage range, and protects hardware for direct connection to industrial
sensors and actuators.
Programmable power-up states provide a known initialized state for safe operation when connected to pumps,
motors, and other industrial actuators or machinery.
Digital I/O watchdogs provide a fail-safe mechanism that monitors for computer or application crashes and place
the system in a state to ensure safe recovery.
Change detection automatically triggers your application to perform a digital read operation after a change-of-state
event on a digital line with minimal processor usage.
Programmable input filters remove chatter, noise, glitches, and spikes on inputs and provide debouncing for digital
switches and relays.
Industrial certifications from CE, FCC, C-Tick, UL, and VDE ensure EMI compliance in most regions of the world and
certify that the system is safe to operate in hazardous environments.

Industrial DIO is part of the industrial DAQ suite of products that includes industrial NI M Series and S Series multifunction
devices. These devices complement the NI programmable automation controller (PAC) platform, providing industrial I/O
that integrates seamlessly with logic, motion, process control, and vision applications. NI PACs combine programmable
logic controller (PLC) ruggedness with PC functionality under an open, flexible software architecture. Using LabVIEW, PACs
with industrial DAQ and digital I/O can interface with existing PLC applications to add more advanced functionality into
industrial machines and improve efficiency.

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Figure 3. Innoventor Beverage Packaging System

Read more about the industrial feature set. Table 2 summarizes the NI industrial digital I/O offering.

Max
Number
Family Bus Voltage Isolation
of
Channels

NI 650x 
5V
PCI, PXI, ISA, PCMCIA, USB 96 DIO —
Low-Cost Devices TTL/CMOS

NI 651x 
64 DI, 64
PCI, PXI 30 V Bank
24 V Logic DO

NI 652x 

24 DI, 24 Channel-to-
High-Voltage PCI, PXI, USB 60 to 150 V
DO channel
Relays

NI 660x 
5 V TTL, 48 Channel-to-
PCI, PXI, ISA 8 CTR
Counter/Timers VDC channel

Table 2. National Instruments Industrial Digital I/O Offering

Digital I/O for Design and Prototyping

Design is an inherently iterative process. No matter the scope of the application, every design cycle proceeds from
definition to simulation, prototyping, and testing, and, more often than not, these stages are repeated throughout
progressive revisions. Having the means to alternate quickly between stages is paramount to optimize the design process.
Graphical system design with LabVIEW meets this need with a single platform encompassing the entire design cycle.
Furthermore, NI R Series multifunction RIO combined with the LabVIEW FPGA Module offers unmatched hardware and
software flexibility for design, prototyping, and deployment.

R Series multifunction RIO devices features user-defined, onboard FPGA processing for complete control of system timing
and triggering. You can configure the FPGA chip without any prior VHDL experience by creating LabVIEW block diagrams
with the LabVIEW FPGA Module, giving you direct, immediate control over all the I/O. This process delivers high-

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performance, user-configurable timing and synchronization, as well as onboard decision making, at rates up to and
exceeding 40 MHz.

For example, if you are developing applications with unsupported or custom digital communication protocols, you can use
the LabVIEW FPGA Module to quickly implement or prototype different communication interfaces on FPGA-based R Series
multifunction RIO hardware.

Figure 4. Custom Digital Protocols with R Series multifunction RIO and LabVIEW FPGA

Using LabVIEW FPGA, you can program each device’s “personality.” A personality is essentially a compiled bitfile
containing configuration information that is downloaded to the onboard FPGA. Rather than use a device with a fixed
personality or application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), you have the ability to customize your board. Changing
personalities as you proceed through the various iterations of a design cycle or prototype is as simple as modifying a
LabVIEW block diagram and recompiling it. Once a personality is complete, LabVIEW FPGA is no longer required because
the device may be accessed through LabVIEW for Windows or LabVIEW Real-Time. For more information on custom RIO
personalities, see the related links below.

Multifunction RIO offers up to 160 digital lines that you can individually configure for input, output, counter/timer, pulse-
width modulation, and more. Table 3 summarizes the NI R Series multifunction RIO offering.

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Analog Analog
Family Bus DIO
Inputs Outputs

NI 783xR, 784xR,
785xR 
PCI, PXI, USB 48 to 96 4 to 8 4 to 8
Multifunction

NI 781xR, NI 782x 
128 to
PCI, PXI, PXIe — —
Digital 160

Table 3. National Instruments R Series Multifunction RIO

NI high-speed digital I/O devices offer another option for many common tests incorporated in the digital device design
process. For applications requiring high-speed stimulus-response tests or nonstandard voltage levels, for example, NI
HSDIO devices complement multifunction RIO devices in the design cycle. HSDIO devices can also interface with higher-
speed devices, transferring data at rates up to 400 Mb/s. Refer to the related links below for more information.

Related Links
 

Developing Digital Communication Interfaces with LabVIEW FPGA

High-Speed Digital I/O
Digital I/O Acquisition and Control

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