VXI celebrated its 10th anniversary in 1997 with a wealth of new products ranging from low-cost modules and mainframes to high-performance application-specific systems. As they have for the last five years, sales of VXI products continue to grow at a rate greater than 25% as more test and measurement suppliers, system integrators, and end users find that VXI makes an excellent platform for their test systems.
Year in Review
VXI is reported to have an installed base of more than $2B with more than 1,200 products actively sold. Not only are VXI products used in the aerospace/defense industry, but also in telecom, transportation, space/satellite, and consumer electronics applications. Since VXI systems can test both electronic and mechanical devices, it is no wonder that so many VXI products were introduced in 1997.
But proliferation of products is only part of the story. A new technology, the M-Module, was developed by Hewlett-Packard and C&H Technologies. M-Modules are VME mezzanine cards adapted for VXI. See the sidebar for a sampling of VXI products introduced in 1997.
What’s Ahead?
If success is a prediction of things to come, VXI should continue to expand to even more industries, and vendors will continue to add more functionality and performance. Test-system manufacturers will continue to use VXI to improve measurements and reduce development times. Standardizing test systems on VXI reduces costs because much of the design work is complete: the enclosure (mainframe), the shielding/grounding, the backplane, the mechanical interfaces, power, cooling, programming, and I/O protocols.
Now, manufacturers can concentrate on measurement, switching, and control features rather than how their product interfaces with other instrumentation. As costs for these manufacturers go down, the savings will be passed on to the users.
System integrators are using VXI more because they can spend less time putting together a system and more time adding their value in terms of fixturing and software. Since VXI is well-understood and well-proven, system integrators save time and effort building a system. These savings will be passed on either in the form of lower integration costs or more value-added functionality.
Finally, end users will find the future quite promising. VXI has always been considered expensive, but innovations like lower cost mainframes and M-Module technology will certainly begin to reduce these costs. In fact, 1997 may be remembered as the year of the breakthrough in lower VXI costs.
About the Author
Grant Drenkow is the marketing programs manager for the Measurement Systems Division at Hewlett-Packard . He served six years in the U.S. Air Force as an electronic warfare officer. In 1983, Mr. Drenkow joined HP where he has worked as a product support engineer, an application engineer, a regional sales engineer, and a product marketing engineer. He has a B.S.E.E. degree from the University of Nebraska and an M.B.A. degree from the University of South Dakota. Hewlett-Packard, Measurement Systems Division, 815 14th St. S.W., MS CU326, Loveland, CO 80537, (970) 679-3128.
SIDEBAR
New VXI Products in 1997
Mainframes
Tektronix: VX14xx Series of IntelliFrames with higher power and cooling and special monitoring features.
National Instruments: a high-powered mainframe.
Hewlett-Packard: 13-slot E8400A mainframe with 3× the cooling, and enhanced monitoring.
A/D Converters
Pentek: 5410, 5420, 5441, and 5472 Series with varying speeds and resolutions. Hewlett-Packard: HP E1563A and E1564A 800-kHz Digitizers with two and four channels per module; E1437A 20-MS/s, 23-bit A/D Converter.
Analyzers
Tektronix: TLA 700 Series of Logic Analyzers; TLA 700 Series of DSOs; TVS6000A Series of Waveform Analyzers.
Data Acquisition
DSP Technology: VX2850 Data Acquisition Module with DSP.
Hewlett-Packard: HP DAC 1000 System with the HP E1415A intelligent data acquisition and control module, a 6-slot mainframe, and HP VEE graphical software; HP E1433A 196-kHz Digitizer plus DSP and the E1434A 65-kHz arbitrary source.
Microwave—A large variety of microwave switch products from Racal Instruments, Hewlett-Packard, and others are available in VXI.
Communication Solutions: CS-5040 Microwave Tuner; the CS-5044 18 to 40-GHz Down Converter; the CS-5045 AM/FM/Log Demodulator.
Specialty Modules
C&H Technologies: VX501B motor-speed control module; VX502B friction brake spin slide module in the B-size VXI format for transportation applications.
Hewlett-Packard: HP E1562D 4.3-GB data disk; HP E3249B SCSI systems disk.
Interface Technology: SR5000GP Guided Probe Module.
National Instruments: VXIpc-850 Series embedded controller.
North Atlantic: VXI 5395 Synchro/Resolver-to-Digital Converter and a Digital-to-Synchro/Resolver.
Pentek: 4459 T1/E1 Full-Duplex Transceiver.
C&H Technologies and Hewlett-Packard: M-Modules with up to six mezzanine cards on one C-size VXI carrier module, each module operating independently with its own VXI address. Since M-Modules are a fraction of the cost of a full-size VXI card, they will change the price point of VXI when small blocks of functionality are needed.
Systems—More and more test-system suppliers are using VXI as the heart of their test system.
GenRad: GENEVA® PCMCIA Modem Test System with ENCOMPASS test data management software.
Hewlett-Packard: TS-5430 and TS-5450 Automotive Functional Test Systems; TS-5470 Electronic Control Module Test System.
ManTech: MTS-300 System for analog and digital functional testing and analog in-circuit testing using Microsoft Visual BASIC software.
Schlumberger: S765ST Telecom Production Test System with CATE software. Teradyne: Spectrum™ 8800-Series VXI Manufacturing Test Platform for SMT circuit board testing and in-circuit/board functional testing.
Copyright 1998 Nelson Publishing Inc.
February 1998