We describe the development and implementation of an undergraduate physics laboratory course based on National Instruments’ LabVIEW application. LabVIEW, a graphical programming language, provides an intuitive interface with which to teach fundamental computer-based data acquisition techniques. To convey the importance of these techniques in modern experimental physics, during our course the students complete a variety of tasks and experiments based around LabVIEW virtual instruments that they have constructed. Furthermore, LabVIEW is a powerful signal processing and waveform analysis tool, it may be used to reinforce core physics concepts taught in an analytical fashion in other courses. Foremost among these is Fourier analysis. We discuss the efficacy of LabVIEW as a pedagogical tool in a number of Fourier-related areas. Other important pure and applied physics topics covered in our LabVIEW course and briefly described here include resonance, filtering and lock-in techniques, thermal diffusivity, chaos, and optical absorption in solids.

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Recently, a number of companies have announced that they are developing new devices for signal processing based on novel architectures. picoChip have recently sampled just such a platform, together with complete toolchain & systems library. This product is based on a massively parallel array of heterogonous processors and delivers extraordinary computational power, eliminating many of the constraints imposed by more traditional architectures. This paper will discuss how parallel architectures can be applied to demanding signal processing systems, and what are the trade-offs with such an approach. It will discuss how such devices can be programmed & how they fit into a traditional development environment. The discussion will be based around the case-study of a real design exercise for a 64 channel 3G (WCDMA) basestation.