PXI Star Trigger Line
- Updated2023-02-19
- 2 minute(s) read
PXI Star Trigger Line
The PXI star trigger is a feature implemented on NI PXI chassis. PXI chassis have a PXI trigger bus that is linked to all slots in the chassis, and the PXI star trigger is linked to Slot 2 in the PXI chassis.
The star trigger is a high-performance trigger signal that you can use to synchronize all the modules in a chassis. You can also do this using the normal PXI trigger bus, but the PXI star trigger offers increased performance, specifically a propagation delay of no more than 5 ns and skew of no more than 1 ns.
The PXI star trigger lines allow a PXI star controller in Slot 2 to route signals to or from other peripheral slots with very low skew and at higher bandwidth than other PXI trigger lines.
When not using the PXI star trigger line, you can use Slot 2 as a standard peripheral slot. However, when using the PXI star trigger, you must have a PXI star controller, (master) device in Slot 2, and one or more peripheral devices in the other slots.
If placed in a peripheral slot—Slot 3 or higher—all RF signal analyzers or signal generators can receive a signal from PXI star.
Additionally, a PXI/PXIe-5650/5651/5652 RF Analog Signal Generator or PXI-5670/5671 Vector Signal Generator in a peripheral slot can be configured to drive a signal onto the PXI star line if the PXI star trigger controller is configured to receive it.