Boston, MA. The Embedded Systems Conference gets underway today, with Tektronix expected to highlight its new Keithley DMM6500 6½-digit bench/system digital multimeter and DAQ6510 data-acquisition and logging-multimeter system plus KickStart 2.0 instrument-control software. The instruments combine a pinch and zoom touchscreen interface with 15 different measurement functions, wide measurement ranges, and multichannel measurement capability. The software supports test engineers who prefer using a PC to set up automated tests.
Bob Green, senior market-development manager, cited several market trends driving the need for the new instruments, including an increase in low-power IoT and medical devices plus the proliferation of automotive electronics. Consequently, he said in a recent phone interview, designers need to measure lower currents as battery-operated devices tend to operate with sleep currents of hundreds of nanoamps. In addition, they must capture the complex load currents of wireless devices all while under pressure to get test results quickly.
And on the manufacturing floor, he said, companies are looking to maximize test speed, cut the cost and number of test stations, and reduce the number of instruments in a system—by, for example, employing instruments with wide measurement ranges and more measurement capability. In addition, test systems that supported obsolete products must be kept operational—requiring the replacement of instruments without investing in new software.
To meet these needs, the new 6½-digit multimeter and data acquisition offerings provide a 5-in. (12.7-cm) touchscreen display with graphing, cursors, and statistics capabilities along with pinch and zoom to offer insight into measurement trends and waveform characteristics, saving time when setting up, monitoring, and executing measurements.
The DMM6500 6½-digit bench/system digital multimeter supports 15 different types of measurements, including capacitance as well as temperature from thermocouples, thermistors, and resistance temperature detectors (RTDs). It can digitize voltage or current waveforms. Waveforms and transients can be captured with the 1-MS/s, 16-bit digitizer so that more measurements can be performed with one instrument and engineers can study more complex load current profiles from wireless devices such as IoT devices.
DC current sensitivity is 10 pA, and resistance sensitivity is 1 µΩ. Accuracy is rated at 0.0025% for one year and includes two-year specifications for longer calibration cycles and lower cost of ownership.
Touchscreen cursors make it easy for designers to characterize measurements with statistical data such as peaks, average, minimum values, and standard deviation over portions of a waveform or over the whole waveform. Up to 7 million readings can be stored in the DMM.
An optional 10-channel scan card or a 9-channel temperature card can be plugged into the rear of the instrument. The DMM6500’s standard interfaces are LAN/LXI and USB-TMC. Optional user-installable interfaces with six programmable digital I/O lines include GPIB, RS-232, and TSP-LINK. To enable test engineers to easily upgrade hardware in legacy test systems with minimal-to-no changes in test codes, the DMM6500 has emulation modes for the Keithley Model 2000 6½-digit DMM and the Keysight 34401A 6½ -digit DMM.
Data acquisition and logging
The new DAQ6510 data-acquisition and logging multimeter System addresses the needs of environmental test, failure analysis, and quality control engineers who need to quickly set up tests on a statistically significant sample of products, Green said.
With its touchscreen display, the DAQ6510 simplifies setup, execution, monitoring, and analysis of multichannel-measurement systems. With previous data logging instruments, engineers running long term tests have been unable to assess how well a test is proceeding, he said, adding that the DAQ6510 solves that problem with a status display which, at a glance, will tell the engineer whether any channel measurements are outside of limits or if measurements have over-ranged. Built-in plotting functions allow users to display up to 20 different plots from 20 channels in one graph and easily drill down using pinch and zoom controls and then conduct further analysis using cursors and statistical functions. The setup, execution, monitoring, and analysis can be done on the instrument without the need for a PC.
To test a statistically significant number of devices, the DAQ6510 can be combined with 7700 Series plug-in switch modules to test as many as 80 devices in one test system. With 12 plug-in switch modules including multiplexers, multiplexers with cold junction compensation for thermocouple temperature measurements, a matrix switch module, a control module, digital I/O module, and gigahertz switch modules, the DAQ6510 delivers the flexibility to build nearly any type of multichannel test system.
The DAQ6510 has the same interfaces and test script processing capability as the DMM6500 to give engineers the ability to select the optimum interface and to customize instrument measurements and displays.
Instrument-control software
For test engineers who prefer using a PC, setting up an automated test is simplified with the new KickStart 2.0 coding-free instrument-control software. Jennifer Cheney, product marketing engineer, said KickStart 2.0 removes the complexity from multi-instrument setup, enabling control of multiple instruments from a single software package with quick instrument discovery supporting GPIB, LAN, and USB interfaces. She added that the software supports fast data visualization—enabling users to get real data just minutes after taking an instrument out of the box. Users can see results from multiple instruments in a single dashboard format, she said.
In device characterization applications, she said, KickStart 2.0 supports fast characterization of materials and semiconductor components using SMUs and power supplies as well as the new DMM. In data-logging applications, the software supports the collection of millions of readings from each instrument, providing safe archival of raw test data for compliance with regulator standards. The software also streamlines the configuration of multichannel DAQ instruments.
Price for the new DMM starts at $1,140. Price for the DAQ system starts at $1,750. KickStart 2.0 software in now available in beta for a 90-day free trial. Beginning July 15, the price will be $249 with a 60-day free trial. Purchase of the new DMM or DAQ system includes a KickStart 2.0 license at no additional cost.
https://www.tek.com/tektronix-and-keithley-digital-multimeter/dmm6500
https://www.tek.com/keithley-switching-and-data-acquisition-systems/keithley-daq6510
