callout: “We are seeing computation, communications, video technology, and digital processing come together to provide a whole host of access possibilities and services over a variety of networks.” Dan Terpack, Tektronix
During December, many of us reexamine what helped or hindered us to achieve our goals during this year and formulate strategies for the next. Since our professional successes have a major influence on our personal lives, we devote considerable time to contemplating what can make us as effective at work.
Of course, many factors deserve evaluation, one of these being the tools we use. For electronic engineers, these primarily are instruments and data acquisition and data processing equipment.
To help you in this annual reassessment and planning, EE interviewed key executives of major instrumentation and data acquisition companies to obtain their views on a range of issues. These include an update on new equipment, support issues, anticipated product introductions, and industry trends.
Benefiting From Recent Introductions
Three factors characterize most recently introduced test and data acquisition equipment: enhanced performance at lower cost fostered by PC advancements, ease of use, and expanded functionality in less space. The Hewlett-Packard Infinium Oscilloscopes and the Tektronix TLA700 Logic Analyzers, both containing PCs operating under Windows 95, exemplify the first two of these factors.
For example, the Infinium DSOs provide the analog-like look and feel users demand and yet offer full PC compatibility—and even a mouse. “The initial reaction to the mouse was interesting,” said Tom Vos, vice president and general manager of the Electronic Instruments Group at HP. “At the product unveiling, I sensed doubt in the audience. But as soon as the attendees started to use the scopes and experienced the ease of accessibility the mouse afforded, skepticism turned to sheer delight.
“Ease of use was a prime requirement in the design of the Infinium,” emphasized Mr. Vos. “Those who carry out ordinary tasks find that the instrument is simple to operate, and those who perform complex tasks can rely on the help system—a built-in guru—to show them how to access advanced features.”
“The TLA700 Logic Analyzer is one of our most significant products of 1997 since it brought performance that was desperately needed to the market place,” said Dan Terpack, president of the Measurement Business Division of Tektronix. In addition to providing a performance level that did not exist before, it is easy to learn and use.
“Typically, the logic analyzer has entailed a long learning curve. With this product, we have seen people sit through a half-hour demonstration and be able, sometimes to their own surprise, to immediately solve their problems,” Mr. Terpack concluded.
National Instruments’ PXI takes advantage of PC innovations and provides greater functionality in less space. PXI is based on the CompactPCI form factor and performance, but with extended specifications and capabilities to best serve instrumentation applications.
“Many potential users had objections to employing PC-based implementations in factory environments due to concerns regarding the ruggedness and form factor of commercial PCs. With the introduction of PXI, we have eliminated that objection,” said Dr. Jim Truchard, chairman and president of National Instruments. “The PXI form factor gives us robust, compact ATE, instrumentation, and data acquisition configurations that are extremely competitive with every other system in the marketplace.
“The PCI bus offers a data transfer rate, bandwidth, and technology that provides capabilities similar to VXI. PXI is low cost, capable of housing multiple instruments, and fully software compatible with all existing technologies including plug-in cards, GPIB, and VXI,” he emphasized.
The Fluke 123 ScopeMeter exemplifies expanded functionality in less space and user friendliness. “It has more functionality, does more things, and does them more simply than any other hand-held scope/multifunction product,” said Craig Miller, vice president of the Industrial Marketing Group at Fluke.
“One of its main attributes is the feature we call connect-and-view which allows you to focus your attention on what you are trying to test and not on triggering an oscilloscope. You just touch the probes to the device you are testing, and the instrument finds the waveform and makes it rock-stable,” he continued.
These instruments are just a few examples of what was introduced in 1997 to provide you with better performance and greater ease of operation. To aid in the selection and use of instruments appropriate for your tasks in 1998, an expanded range of assistance and support facilities is being offered.
Help and Support
Many companies have provided catalogs and configuration guides on CD-ROMs. These offerings are being extended and supplemented via the internet. For instance, “National Instruments provides software tools for decision-making so customers can quickly establish which products to select, and we give examples on how to use them,” explained Dr. Truchard.
“The selection process is becoming simplified through the use of the internet since it allows companies to show potential customers what is available,” commented Mr. Vos of HP. “To enable engineers to make the right choice, we actually run demos on the net. It is a simulation, of course. But as an interactive demo, it gives engineers a better shot at determining whether a product that they have in mind can fulfill their need, or if they require more or less functionality or capability.”
Of course, live telephone support is provided by most companies, a service particularly appreciated by new engineers or those who recently changed careers. “We find that many people in instrumentation, data acquisition, or production testing have had relatively little experience,” said Joe Keithley, president and CEO of Keithley Instruments. “To provide the needed help, we have a group of experienced engineers to furnish post-sales support.”
Instruments to Expect
Since telecommunications products constitute the fastest growing segment of the electronic equipment market, many instrument manufacturers are concentrating on that sector of the industry. New instruments are being developed for testing the many battery-powered, wireless, communications transceivers; cellular or PCS base stations, and telecom and network-related equipment.
For instance, high-throughput production testing of battery-powered equipment poses many challenges, including simulation of long-term battery behavior. Special power supplies must accommodate fast load changes and be programmable to mimic decreasing voltage and increasing internal impedance as the battery charge is depleted. Keithley and HP developed such supplies, and more products to support battery-operated equipment tests will be forthcoming.
HP is developing instruments for many sectors of the communications market. “For example, we are focusing on cellular and PCS base-station test equipment to satisfy the many nuances defined by FCC and other regulatory agencies. Special modulation schemes and various coding environments must be entered for and combined in one box that can be set up easily and accommodate many applications,” said Mr. Vos.
“Tektronix also is focusing on the telecommunications marketplace. To increase our coverage in this area, we just acquired the Siemens test communications group,” said Mr. Terpack.
Tektronix also is active in graphic communications. “For instance, we have developed a television-picture-quality analyzer and will offer more digital visual-measurement test tools. These are in addition to providing new general-purpose instruments, such as logic analyzers, signal sources, and other test equipment. However, many of these general-purpose products can become more customized to focus easily on specific applications,” he added.
Fluke is planning to introduce at least 14 major products in 1998, according to Mr. Miller. Some of these are being developed in response to customer demands, and others will contain features that currently do not exist in alternative instruments.
In the data acquisition market, all leading companies will continue to provide more PC-based and network-compatible equipment. Some new products will offer more functionality and flexibility in a smaller form factor, enabling them to be placed close to sensors. Others will be PC-compatible but operate without containing or being connected to a PC.
The Keithley SmartLink is an example of a flexible, small-form-factor data acquisition product that uses various front ends to accommodate a range of sensors and a selection of serial, parallel, or Ethernet interfaces for data transfer. IOtech will introduce data acquisition equipment with the capability to make all measurements without the presence of a PC.
“Removing the PC from the measurement process avoids some of the limitations encountered when a PC is present,” said Tom DeSantis, president of IOtech. “The three most often cited shortcomings of having PCs in the field are:
PCs are not robust enough.
PCs may be used for playing games or internet browsing instead of performing job-related functions. In unattended applications, there is a propensity that they will be stolen.
PCs are expensive. If you are running multiple tests and you have a PC at every site, you have added $3,000 or $4,000 per site. But if you only need one PC to set up a multitude of data acquisition devices, you realize substantial savings.”
Industry Trends
“We are seeing computation, communications, video technology, and digital processing come together to provide a whole host of access possibilities and services over a variety of networks,” commented Mr. Terpack of Tektronix. “All these disciplines move to higher-speed digital designs to accommodate the new protocols and standards and the delivery of high-speed data. And, digital mobile communications technologies are beginning to catch on all over the world. What does that mean? It means that more measurement and test equipment is needed to support the new technologies.”
“The communications industry is a major driver of the test-equipment industry,” concurred HP’s Mr. Vos. “In the developed parts of the world, people are trying to deliver more services across infrastructures; in the emerging world, they have to put in the infrastructures. But you can look at it differently. The issue of connectivity is hooked
to communications, not as an industry, but as a way of connecting people to jobs and enterprises around the globe.
“In many cases, today’s engineers must communicate and exchange data with their counterparts working on the same project located on the other side of the globe. This means we have to help them gain access to knowledge bases and get instruments and subsystems hooked up to bigger wide area networks,” Mr. Vos stated.
“But connectivity within the corporate environment already is getting better and better, especially aided by today’s internet tools and web browsers,” said Dr. Truchard of National Instruments. “This trend really brings the PC more into focus. From a technical point of view, in terms of performance and cost, the PC excels in virtually every category, and its application greatly helps the instrument and data acquisition user.”
“We will continue to do things quicker and for less money by using PC-based systems,” added Mr. DeSantis of IOtech. “In addition to being software-driven and flexible, they offer a better than two-to-one price advantage over traditional instrumentation systems.”
“PC-related digital technology and software expanded the functionality of many products,” said Mr. Keithley. “We will see additional functionality being put into most general-purpose products. As a result, historical boundary descriptions of what an instrument is—a counter, a DMM, a scope—may become blurred.”
As electronics permeate into more diverse products, people in different industries or application areas must use test equipment. “As a result, it is essential that instruments be very easy to understand for the specific tests that need to be done,” said Mr. Miller of Fluke.
From all the interviews that EE conducted, it is clear that providing easy-to-use instruments is a foremost consideration in the minds of all. In addition to featuring flexibility and performance, the instruments and data acquisition equipment available in 1998 will offer much of the ease of use we desire.
Instrumentation Products
New Test Tool Is
Combination Scope/Meter
The ScopeMeter® 123, a hand-held, ruggedized test tool that integrates oscilloscope, multimeter, and paperless-recorder functions, features connect-and-view hands-off operation. You can access 26 common oscilloscope and multimeter measurements from a menu list, including VDC, Vrms, Vpeak, amps, time, frequency, duty cycle, phase, temperature, and resistance. The oscilloscope has a 20-MHz bandwidth, and the multimeter is a true-rms, dual-channel, 5,000-count DMM with 0.5% accuracy. The 2.5-lb instrument stores two screen images and up to 10 user setups in nonvolatile memory and includes an RS-232 interface for printing or downloading measurements to a PC. It is compatible with FlukeView® for Windows to document, analyze, and archive measurements. Fluke, (800) 44 FLUKE.
New Oscilloscopes
Minimize User Frustration
The Infinium family of five oscilloscopes has bandwidths from 500 MHz to 1.5 GHz; maximum sample rates per channel of 1 GS/s, 2 GS/s, 4 GS/s, and 8 GS/s, and memory depth of 32k to 64k/channel. They provide analog-like front-panel controls, a Microsoft® Windows® 95-based graphical user interface, and a built-in information system. Key characteristics include separate scaling and positioning controls for each channel and easy-to-access marker and measurement functions. The Infinium line introduces the company’s violation trigger technology. This technology expands the offerings of standard trigger modes, such as edge, glitch, delay, logic, and video, by adding rise, fall, setup, and hold-time capabilities. Hewlett-Packard, (800) 452-4844, ext. 5257.
Logic-Analyzer Family
Includes Two DSO Modules
The TLA 700 Series of card-modular logic-analyzers includes color portable and color benchtop mainframes, logic-analyzer modules, digital storage oscilloscope (DSO) modules, and the Windows® 95 operating system. All modules and software are fully interchangeable between the portable and benchtop mainframes. The four logic-analyzer modules offer simultaneous 2-GHz timing and 200-MHz state analysis through a single probe and 34 to 136 channels per module with 512 kbits of memory per channel. The benchtop mainframe accommodates up to 680 channels. Two-channel and four-channel DSO modules feature a 5-GS/s single-shot sample rate and a 1-GHz analog bandwidth. Each channel has a 15k record length. Tektronix, (800) 426-2200 (press 3, code 1001).
Meter Performs 14 Power
And Time Measurements
The 4400A RF Peak Power Meter performs time-domain measurements in the 1-MHz to 40-GHz range. It tests radar pulse bursts, GSM and TDMA wireless signals, and broadcast TV and radio transmitters. The peak power dynamic range is >60 dB without any range changes. Pulse measurements are made from -40 dB to +20 dB and CW measurements from -50 dB to +20 dB with 0.1 dB resolution. A random repetitive sampling system continually performs waveform averaging from 1 to 10,000 S/data point. Continuous signal processing allows pre- and post-trigger analysis. Data can be stored on a 1.44-MB floppy drive. A laser printer or a pen plotter can be connected through serial, parallel, or GPIB ports. Boonton Electronics, (201) 386-9696.
Lightweight Recorder Suited
For Long-Record Applications
The OR100 Handy OR Oscillographic Recorder has two or four isolated inputs with ranges extending from 100 mV to 1,000 V and eight logic inputs. The internal memory capacity is 128 k/channel (512 k/ch interleaved) and 40-MB mass storage. Data is sampled at 400 kS/s with a bandwidth of 100 kHz and stored to memory or printed. A PCMCIA slot accepts a mass storage card. With a fax/modem, the recorder sends waveforms-on-trigger and transfers files or receives settings from a PC. Yokogawa Corp. of America, 800-258-2552, ext. 577.
Instrument-Grade PC Has
Front Access for Connectors
The GagePC 580 is a rugged, flexible, and easily upgradable system accommodating PCI and ISA bus-based data acquisition and instrumentation cards. The 19″ chassis, which accommodates up to five add-on cards (two ISA and three PCI), has front access for instrument connectors and a built-in 10″ SVGA color monitor. The instrument-grade chassis houses a multilayer passive backplane, a single-card CPU, a 350-W power supply with a mean time between failures of 120,000 hours, and two 106-cfm fans to provide forced air cooling for the cards installed. Other features include a 101-key keyboard and a PS/2-compatible mouse. Gage Applied Sciences, (800) 567-GAGE.
Switch System Supplies
Four VXIbus Slots
The 1255A Switch System provides four slots for VXIbus C-sized 1260 Series Switch Modules. It is controlled via an internal IEEE 488 or RS-232 interface and comes with VXIplug&play drivers. The unit provides a message-based interface that controls multiple 1260 series cards via a VXIbus local bus. The local bus transmits control signals from the 1255A controller to all 1260 cards in the chassis. The switched-mode PWM power supply outputs +5V @ 10A and +12 V and +24 V @ 4 A. Racal Instruments, (800) 722-2528.
Data Acquisition Products
New Modules Expand
Data Acquisition Series
Three new modules in the SmartLink™ series measure DC volts, ohms, temperature, and acceleration in factory or field environments. Two modules provide common-mode voltage isolation up to 800 V. The third module accepts inputs from a piezoelectric sensor and converts these signals to Gs. The modules interface to a remote computer or controller using data-communications networks such as Ethernet, RS-232, and GPIB. Keithley Instruments, (800) 552-1115.
New Platform Offers Same
Features as PCI
The PCI eXtensions for Instrumentation (PXI) combines the advantages of mainstream PCs with instrumentation extensions. The form factor is CompactPCI. PXI offers the same electrical features as PCI, including 132-MB/s data rates and plug-and-play functionality, and defines Microsoft’s Windows NT® and Windows 95® as standard software frameworks. It has an integrated trigger bus and reference clock for multiboard synchronization and timing and local buses for slot-to-slot communication between peripherals. Environmental testing and active cooling ease systems integration and ensure multivendor interoperability. PXI products include mainframes, controllers and interfaces, data acquisition modules, and instrumentation and image-acquisition modules. National Instruments, (800) 258-7022.
Data Acquisition System
Operates Without PC
The LogBook/300™ is a portable, PC-based data acquisition system smaller than a notebook PC. It contains a 486 processor, has a sampling rate of 100 kHz, and provides nonvolatile storage of up to 250 million samples. Collected data may be transferred to a PC via serial or parallel ports or a removable PC-Card. LogBook/300 operates stand alone with a PC or may be controlled from an optional LBK1 terminal. LogView™ Out-of-the-Box™ software is included. IOtech, (440) 439-4091.
Copyright 1997 Nelson Publishing Inc.
December 1997
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