Does NI PXIe-4163 Support Pulse Voltage Output?

Updated Feb 29, 2024

Reported In

Hardware

  • PXIe-4163
  • PXIe-4139

Issue Details

I find my Labview code doesn't work when I try to output pulse voltage using PXIe-4163. But it works in PXIe-4139.

Solution

The pulsing capability of an SMU is hardware-dependent, not all SMUs support this mode. The SMU should have an appropriate circuitry to be able to pulse voltage or current. It is well described in the following article: 
High-Power IV Characterization Using Pulsed SMU Output

The PXIe-4163 doesn't support any kind of pulsing. If it does then the appropriate information should be presented in the SMU's documentation.

For example, the PXIe-4139 does support pulsing, and if we compare the PXIe-4163 and PXIe-4139 documentation (both Specification and User Manual) we will see the difference:
PXIe-4163 Specifications
PXIe-4139 Specifications
PXIe-4163 Overview
PXIe-4139 Overview

You can see another confirmation at the end of this page too (see under the Support for Pulsing topic): 
Support for Pulsing