What does Windows 7 bring to test and measure?

Compared to the simple addition of new features and functions in Windows, Microsoft's latest Windows 7 system has improved many features in previous Windows Vista systems: for example, optimizing system security Sexuality, greatly improved system response and operational performance, and further improvements in software and hardware compatibility make it a powerful tool for engineers to implement test and measurement applications.

At present, computer-based test and measurement and automation applications have become the mainstream trend of engineering, Windows 7, such a new computer operating system, what will bring to engineers? From this perspective, this article will show you how to effectively use the powerful features of Windows 7 to achieve data transfer bandwidth, system performance, and integration with cutting-edge technologies (such as multi-core, 64-bit, USB, and PCI Express buses). In order to help engineers achieve more emerging applications, beyond infinity.

Figure 1 Windows 7 operating system

USB to enhance data transmission bandwidth

For the USB bus, Microsoft provides more surprises in Windows 7 Features such as reduced non-essential timers, selectable Hub Suspension, and reduced count times improve the performance of USB-based test and measurement equipment. According to a recent evaluation test, a USB bus data acquisition device achieved a 10% increase in total transmit bandwidth compared to Windows XP. In addition, in high-speed or multi-function I/O measurement applications, up to 20% can be achieved with the Windows 7 operating system and LabVIEW software, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2 Comparison of transmission bandwidth between Windows 7 and Windows XP using CompactDAQ

Multi-core technology

In order to make better use of multi-core technology, Microsoft has a new underlying design for Windows 7, enabling it to accommodate the parallel operation of more system tasks. For LabVIEW developers, creating multiple independent tasks in an application is not complicated. The most typical example is that we can easily draw multiple parallel loops directly on the block diagram, due to the parallelism of LabVIEW itself. Features, the system will automatically create a new thread in parallel code, so you can enjoy the performance improvement brought by multi-core without any code modification, as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3 Efficient Multithreaded Programming in LabVIEW

In addition to development tools, multicore technology also means we need hardware for test and measurement applications. Drivers, data processing and analysis, etc. are also multi-threaded. For multi-threaded hardware drivers (such as NI-DAQmx), engineers can create efficient and reliable directly without any manual or underlying development, modification and thread management. s application. Data acquisition applications using LabVIEW and NI hardware platforms can further improve the computational efficiency of multi-core processors through Windows 7 multi-core optimization.

PCI Express

The new generation of PCI Express technology uses a point-to-point bus topology to allow each instrument to transmit data to the processor through separate channels, significantly improving the transmission of data. Bandwidth minimizes the need for memory and speeds up the flow of data.

Integrating Windows 7 with devices that use the PCI Express bus (such as NI X-Series data acquisition devices) can double the data acquisition throughput compared to traditional PCI buses. PCI Express technology uses a point-to-point bus topology to provide multiple benefits for test and measurement applications, including dedicated bandwidth per device and up to 250MB of data bandwidth per direction, enabling engineers and scientists to capture larger scale analog and digital And the counter signal.

64-bit system

Windows 7 is Microsoft's third operating system that supports 64-bit processors, although the 32-bit version of Windows is still the most popular, but 64-bit hardware and The software is ready. Before upgrading to Windows 7, users need to have a deep understanding of the comparison between 64-bit and 32-bit to choose the most suitable platform. The new 64-bit LabVIEW 2009 is the first version of LabVIEW supported on 64-bit operating systems. Test programs running on 64-bit hardware and software systems can use more physical memory than 32 bits, allowing programs to perform more complex operations. In addition to increased memory, new registers on 64-bit processors can increase application performance by up to 20%; thus, some high-channel-count and high-sampling data acquisition systems can be implemented faster with 64-bit systems. Data processing and analysis.

Ensuring Software and Hardware Compatibility

Although Windows 7 gives us a good technical vision, enabling us to implement emerging applications that were previously impossible, software and hardware compatibility issues have always existed. Incompatibility issues often occur in Windows Vista, and many hardware devices have no way to function properly in the new operating system.

In order to solve this problem, the new Windows 7 uses the latest virtualization in addition to the consistent "compatibility mode" (that is, trying to make the application "think" that it runs in the previous version of Windows). Technology (Virtualization). Windows 7 offers a new mode (which can be called "Windows XP Mode"), and users can emulate Windows XP. This approach gives LabVIEW developers a simplest mechanism to run low-level programs to help with compatibility with previous code.

Summary

As a new operating system and platform, Windows 7 gives engineers faster speeds, greater data transfer bandwidth, and newer businesses. Technology that allows engineers to further innovate, change and optimize the world!