© National Instruments Corporation 4-1 NI 7350 User Manual
4
Functional Overview
This chapter provides an overview of the National Instruments
PXI/PCI-7350 controller architecture and its capabilities.

Dual Processor Architecture

The NI 7350 controller can perform up to eight axes of simultaneous
motion control in a preemptive, multitasking, real-time environment.
An advanced dual-processor architecture, 32-bit CPU, digital signal
processor (DSP) for embedded real-time control, and custom FPGAs give
the NI 7350 controller high-performance capabilities. The powerful
function set provides high-speed communications while off-loading
complex motion functions from the host PC for optimized system
performance.
The NI 7350 controller uses the DSP for all closed-loop control, including
position tracking, PID control closed-loop computation, and motion
trajectory generation. The DSP chip is supported by a custom FPGA
thatperforms the high-speed encoder interfacing, position capture and
breakpoint (position compare) functions, motion I/O processing, and
stepper pulse generation for hard real-time functionality.
The embedded CPU runs a multitasking real-time operating system
and handles host communications, command processing, multi-axis
interpolation, onboard program execution, error handling, general-purpose
digital I/O, and overall motion system integration functions.

Embedded Real-Time Operating System

The embedded firmware is based upon an embedded real-time operating
system (RTOS) kernel and provides optimum system performance in
varying motion applications. Motion tasks are prioritized. Task execution
order depends on the priority of each task, the state of the entire motion
system, I/O or other system events, and the real-time clock.