E1418A: What is the Difference between the E1418A Sample Rate and Settling Time

The term "sample rate" is not usually used with a DAC like the E1418A that doesn't have on board memory and it's own clock to clock out the individual values. This is more in the domain of a digital arbitrary waveform generator or synthesizer. 1 kSa/sec is a very conservative specification for the E1418A, because the update rate is strongly dependent on the interface and the controller and operating system.

300 us settling time is also very conservative because this is the minimum time to settle to the rated accuracy when changing the output value from positive full scale to negative full scale or the reverse. That's not usually done in a practical application. The steps are normally small steps and it doesn't significantly affect the signal to go faster.

Using Windows 2000, with a 600 KHz Pentium III PC, and the Plug&Play driver hpe1418_level() function doing 1000 steps, 1.7 ms/step was achieved over the E8491B Firewire interface. This dropped to 210 us/step with MXI-II. This was done using Keysight VEE 6.01. It should be a little faster C++

In the case of getting 210 us/step, one would have to look very closely with a very good scope to see if there is any difference in the waveform from slowing it down with a delay in my program to 300 us/step. It would also strongly depend on the waveform. That exercise is left to the user for the specific application. The E1418A specifications just provide the settling time description. Use your own judgment and measurements, if necessary, if you want to go faster.