Dear DRS4 users,

a new version of the evaluation board has been designed and is in production now. The main difference is that it uses active input amplifiers, which result in an analog bandwidth of 700 MHz (as compared with the 220 MHz of the previous board) at moderate power consumption, so the board can still be powered by the USB port. New orders will receive boards V3, the old V2 boards are not available any more.

It is mandatory to use the software revision 3.0.0 or later with the new board. This software has also many new features in the oscilloscope application, and together with the new firmware it reduces the noise of the board below 0.5 mV RMS. Although the software can be used with old V2 boards, some limitations might apply due to the old firmware of the boards. People having a Xilinx download cable can flash the firmware contained in the 3.0.0 revision to their V2 board to get all features of the new software.

The evaluation board manual V3 contains the new schematics of the analog inputs using the THS4508 differential amplifier, so people doing their own design can use this schematics as and example.

Best regards,

   Stefan Ritt