Fast nmr acquisition processor

Abstract

A Fourier transform NMR spectrometer incorporates a digital acquisition processor which provides a sequence of gating states specifying properties of the excitation, decoupling, and homogeneity spoiling pulses, lock channel operation and the like. Each gating state, together with the selected persistance time for the corresponding state, occupies one of a sequence of words supplied by the acquisition processor to a FIFO buffer. Timing control means, initialized from the persistance time portion of the current FIFO word, determines the time interval during which said gating state information is available at an output port, after which the next sequential FIFO word is advanced to the output port. NMR response is accumulated and averaged in a dual port fast semiconductor memory. The semiconductor memory is independently accessible to a host computer through a direct memory port. After each data block of a predetermined number of transients has been so processed, the entire updated cumulative spectrum is copied into non-volatile storage to secure the data against loss or distortion.