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What Is FlexRIO?

FlexRIO instruments combine large, user-programmable FPGAs and high-performance analog, digital, and RF I/O to offer the flexibility of custom hardware without the cost of custom design.

Why FlexRIO?

The FlexRIO product line was designed for engineers and scientists who need the flexibility of custom hardware without the cost of custom design. Featuring large, user-programmable FPGAs and high-speed analog, digital, and RF I/O, FlexRIO provides a fully reconfigurable instrument that you can program graphically with LabVIEW or with VHDL/Verilog. FlexRIO products are available in two architectures. The first architecture incorporates modular I/O modules that attach to the front of a PXI FPGA Module for FlexRIO and communicate over a parallel digital interface, and the second uses high-speed serial converters and features integrated I/O and Xilinx UltraScale FPGA technology in a single device.

Key Benefits

  • Leverage Rapidly Evolving Technology—FlexRIO provides you with the latest high-speed converter and FPGA technologies before they are widely available in commercial instruments. You can use FlexRIO to develop applications that push the requirements for sample rate, bandwidth, resolution, and channel count. Learn more
  • Process Signals in Real Time—FlexRIO can help you keep up with faster converters. The modules with Xilinx Kintex UltraScale FPGAs and the LabVIEW FPGA Module together provide the resources you need to engineer complex algorithms, process data in real time between the I/O and CPU, and deploy your designs to hardware.
  • Accelerate FPGA Programming—The software behind FlexRIO gives you the flexibility to implement a custom FPGA design from scratch and the support of starting from a host-based driver. You can program the FPGA with LabVIEW FPGA or the Xilinx Vivado Project Export feature. Learn more
  • Synchronize Multiple Modules—FlexRIO uses the inherent timing and synchronization capabilities of PXI, which means you can synchronize multiple modules with subsample jitter between channels. FlexRIO modules with integrated I/O also work with NI-TClk technology, making it simple to program this synchronization. Learn more

Featured Content

Using FlexRIO for Nanoparticle Analysis

The National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology used FlexRIO and LabVIEW to quickly build a mass spectrometer-based analytical system for nanoparticles.

Designing Custom Instruments with the FlexRIO MDK

The FlexRIO Module Development Kit (MDK) gives users all the tools necessary to develop a custom module for use with NI FlexRIO products.

Advantages of Direct RF Sampling

Learn about the converter technology behind the latest FlexRIO transceiver and its applications for radar systems.

Featured FlexRIO Products