A History Of Instrument Interconnect Standards

Sept. 1, 2003
Standards for interconnecting instruments date back to the mid-1960s when Hewlett-Packard (now Agilent Technologies) developed the HP-IB, or Hewlett-Packard interface bus, also known as GPIB (general-purpose interface bus). This very...

Standards for interconnecting instruments date back to the mid-1960s when Hewlett-Packard (now Agilent Technologies) developed the HP-IB, or Hewlett-Packard interface bus, also known as GPIB (general-purpose interface bus).

This very popular international standard is widely used by test and measurement engineers. It's governed by the IEEE-488 standard in the U.S. and the IEC-60625 standard internationally. GPIB is a byte serial bit parallel bus that allows up to 15 instruments to be connected to a single controller (computer). It has a maximum data rate of 1 Mbyte/s.

In the late 1980s, the VXI specification emerged. Based on the VMEbus, it combines the GPIB's ease-of-integration advantages with the VMEbus' speed. The VMEbus' backplane can transfer data at up to 40 Mbytes/s. However, VXI is an expensive interconnect standard that can run two to three times the price of GPIB.

In 1997, National Instruments came up with the PXI specification based on the CompactPCI (cPCI) bus. This Windows-based interconnection method was an instant hit. It offers the choice of mid-level complexity and an intermediate price between the GPIB and VXI, plus it's faster than VXI. It can transfer data at up to 132 Mbytes/s (264 Mbytes/s peak).

About the Author

Roger Allan

Roger Allan is an electronics journalism veteran, and served as Electronic Design's Executive Editor for 15 of those years. He has covered just about every technology beat from semiconductors, components, packaging and power devices, to communications, test and measurement, automotive electronics, robotics, medical electronics, military electronics, robotics, and industrial electronics. His specialties include MEMS and nanoelectronics technologies. He is a contributor to the McGraw Hill Annual Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. He is also a Life Senior Member of the IEEE and holds a BSEE from New York University's School of Engineering and Science. Roger has worked for major electronics magazines besides Electronic Design, including the IEEE Spectrum, Electronics, EDN, Electronic Products, and the British New Scientist. He also has working experience in the electronics industry as a design engineer in filters, power supplies and control systems.

After his retirement from Electronic Design Magazine, He has been extensively contributing articles for Penton’s Electronic Design, Power Electronics Technology, Energy Efficiency and Technology (EE&T) and Microwaves RF Magazine, covering all of the aforementioned electronics segments as well as energy efficiency, harvesting and related technologies. He has also contributed articles to other electronics technology magazines worldwide.

He is a “jack of all trades and a master in leading-edge technologies” like MEMS, nanolectronics, autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence, military electronics, biometrics, implantable medical devices, and energy harvesting and related technologies.

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