Counter/Timer Hardware Product-Feature Matrix

This document is part of a comprehensive tutorial on industrial Digital I/O and Counter/Timer hardware. Learn about National Instruments product offerings for digital and timing I/O, the Industrial Feature Set including watchdog timers and isolation, complementary devices like relays, solenoids and encoders, concepts like sinking and sourcing, and see how these devices can be used in your industrial application.

For more information return to the Complete Industrial Digital I/O and Counter/Timer Tutorial.

What are Counter/Timers?

The NI 660x counter/timers use the National Instruments NI-TIO, a National Instruments ASIC designed specifically to meet the counting and timing requirements of measurement applications that are beyond the capabilities of off-the-shelf components. The wider functionality and simpler programming interface make the NI 660x ideal for counting and timing applications.

In addition to counter/timer functionality, the NI 660x devices include TTL-compatible digital I/O ports that are bit-configurable for input or output. These devices are suited for frequency measurement, generation of retriggerable pulses, frequency shift-keying, two-signal edge separation measurements, continuous buffered event counting, and continuous buffered pulse train measurements. The NI 660x counter/timer devices are readily integrated into measurement systems that require synchronization across multiple hardware devices because they are equipped with the National Instruments PXI Trigger bus or the RTSI bus.

In addition to the 660x boards, NI 6624 devices are industrial isolated timing interfaces for PCI bus computer systems. You can use the eight 32-bit channel-channel optically isolated counter/timers of the NI 6624 devices to perform a wide variety of buffered measurements or other counter/timer tasks, including position or quadrature encoder measurement, edge counting, period measurement, pulse-width measurement, frequency measurement, semi-period measurement, two-edge separation measurement, PWM generation, pulse, and pulse-train generation.

National Instruments Counter/Timer Hardware

BOARD	NI 6624	NI 6608	NI 6602	NI 6601	E Series
Platforms	PCI	PXI	PCI, PXI	PCI	PCI, PXI, ISA, PCMCIA, USB, 1394
Counter ASIC	NI-TIO	NI-TIO	NI-TIO	NI-TIO	DAQ-STC
Counter Channels	8	8	8	4	2
Counter Resolution	32	32 bits	32 bits	32 bits	24 bits
Isolation	Ch-Ch Optically Isolated	None	None	None	None
Standard Timebases	20 MHz	80 MHz,	80 MHz,	20 MHz,	20 MHz,
	100 kHz	20 MHz,	20 MHz,	100 kHz	100 kHz
		100 kHz	100 kHz
Timebase Stability	50 ppm	75 ppb	50 ppm	50 ppm	100 ppm
Prescalers	none	X8, X2	X8, X2	X8, X2	none
Max Frequency (Without prescalers)	20 MHz	80 MHz	80 MHz	20 MHz	20 MHz
Max Frequency (With prescalers)	N/A	125 MHz	125 MHz	60 MHz	N/A
Digital I/O	0	up to 32 bits	up to 32 bits	up to 32 bits	8 bits
DMA (on board)	3 channels	3 channels	3 channels	1 channel	Up to 3 channels
RTSI Bus (synchronize multi-board operation)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes (on PCI and PXI)
Updown counter (external control for counting direction)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Quadrature Motion Encoder Support	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	with external IC, channels A & B only
Debounce Filters on I/O Lines	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Two-Signal Edge-Separation Measurement	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Hardware Start Trigger	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Start Counters Simultaneously	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Continuous Buffered Input	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Dynamic Pulse Train Frequency Change	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

Reader Comments | Submit a comment »

The question "what is a counter/timer" is never answered. Instead only the features of the NI counter/timers are discussed. What are the normal functions a counter/timers performs beyond the generic "synchronizing acquisition"?
- Feb 1, 2007

This should be at the front of the hardware selection
This is what engineers need for info. Please place this at the front of hardware website and in catalog...
- Victor Villavicencio, Northrop Grumman. victorvilla93@hotmail.com - Apr 6, 2006