PCI-Bus piezo nanopositioning controller arrives

Believed to be the world's first PCI-bus digital nanopositioning controller for closed-loop piezoelectric positioners and scanners, it provide more flexibility and better overall value.

PI (Physik Instrumente), a leading manufacturer of nanopositioning and precision motion-control equipment for photonics, semiconductor and life science applications, introduces the world's first PCI-bus digital nanopositioning controller for closed-loop piezoelectric positioners and scanners.

The new E-761 motion controller is designed to provide more flexibility and better overall value than any other digital piezo controller on the market today.

Features and advantages include the following.

* Controls three logical axes of closed-loop piezo nanopositioning systems with capacitive position feedback.

* PCI interface for high throughput and precise motion synchronization with frame grabbers and other peripheral devices.

* Four on-board piezo-drivers, no external amps required.

* Coordinate transformation for active trajectory control.

* Additional high-bandwidth analog command interface (0 to 10V).

* Powerful 32-Bit DSP; 24-Bit D/A converters for sub-nm position resolution.

* Two linearization systems for greater positioning accuracy.

* Plug and play: id-chip support for automatic stage calibration.

* PCI-Bus for nanopositioning controllers: why it matters - many of today's high-tech applications, such as imaging, metrology, scanning microscopy and surface analysis require a combination of high-speed motion control and high-resolution vision.

They also require extremely fast data acquisition and precise synchronization between the imaging and motion control devices.

Peripheral components with PCI bus interface are ideal for achieving these tasks, because the PIC-bus was designed to give high-bandwidth access to the microprocessor in the PC.

PI has now introduced the worlds first commercially available, fully digital piezoelectric nanopositioning controller on a PCI board.

The PCI allows for very fast communication and easy integration with devices such as frame grabbers - a definite plus in real-time data acquisition applications or when operating multiple controllers simultaneously.

* Additional high-bandwidth analog interface - the E-761 boasts a high-bandwidth analog position control input in addition to its PCI interface.

This is ideal for applications where position data are provided in analog form and for external triggering tasks.

* Active trajectory control provides sub-nanometer motion accuracy - incorporating a powerful 32-bit DSP, the E-761 controllers offers advanced features such as polynomial linearization and coordinate transformation - not available in conventional controllers.

With flexible coordinate transformation, sensor and actuator axes need not be parallel to each other and rotation can be added to a single module XY-motion system, or tilt errors can be reduced for motion accuracies in the sub-nanometer range.

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