NI PXI/PCI-5401
RTSI/PXI Trigger Lines

The NI 5401 contains seven trigger lines and one RTSI clock line available over the RTSI bus to send and receive NI 5401-specific information to other devices that have RTSI connectors. The following figure shows the RTSI trigger lines and routing of NI 5401 signals to the RTSI switch.

The following figure shows the PXI trigger lines and routing of NI PXI-5401 signals to the RTSI switch.

The NI 5401 can receive a hardware trigger from another device as an RTSI trigger signal on any of the RTSI/PXI trigger lines.

You can also route signals as follows:

• Route the start trigger signal generated on the NI 5401 to other devices through any of the RTSI/PXI bus trigger lines.
• Route the SYNC output generated on the NI 5401 to other devices through any of the RTSI/PXI bus trigger lines. You can use this signal to give other devices an accurate and fine frequency resolution clock.

• NI PCI-5401

For frequency locking to other devices as a master, the NI PCI-5401 sends an onboard 20 MHz signal to the RTSI Osc line as a device clock signal. For locking to other devices as a slave, the NI PCI-5401 receives the RTSI Osc line as an RTSI clock signal.

• NI PXI-5401

For frequency locking to other devices, the NI PXI-5401 receives the PXI backplane 10 MHz Osc as a Reference clock signal. All NI PXI-5401 signal generators use this common signal as the Reference clock for frequency locking.