PC-based test system sales are on the increase

PC-based test is being adopted more widely as firms try to make their manufacturing and development activities more cost effective.

This is the view of leading virtual test system supplier National Instruments, but it is also supported by the industry’s largest test instrument supplier Agilent Technologies, which has started to look seriously at launching systems into the PC-based test market.

Although still representing a small part of the test equipment market, PC-based test system sales are growing at over 35 per cent according to one analyst and this has been helped by the last few years of downturn in the industry.

“The downturn forced firms to reconsider how they put test systems together,” said Ian Bell, UK marketing manager at National Instruments.

“Virtual test is certainly an area of interest for us going forward,” said a spokesman for Agilent, but Agilent has yet to make any decision on whether it uses an existing platform or develops its own.

PC-based test systems use a range of comms platforms such as PXI, VXI and GPIB, to link test modules. The PXI test and measurement platform, which is backed by National Instruments, LeCroy, Rohde &Schwarz and Racal Instruments amongst others, is benefiting from its compatibility with standard PC technologies such as Windows and the 132Mbyte/s PCI bus. “PXI-based test is riding on the back of all that (PCI) development and that is where the dollars are going,” said Bell.

According to Bell, firms favour using the PXI platform for PC-test systems because of its interchangeability with PCI. “The VXI test platform is no so straightforward for this,” said Bell.

Earlier this year Agilent Technologies moved its bench top product range closer to PC-based test by adding gigabit networking capabilities to its 16900 series of 4GHz logic analysers. The intention is to allow users to host the logic analysis application software on a PC and provides remote access and control from any Windows-based PC on the network.

According to Bell at National Instruments, it is significant that a company like Agilent “now has to take notice of PXI”.

PXI is a modular instrumentation platform designed specifically for measurement and automation applications. It is designed to allow the user to combine test modules into a single system from different vendors. Communication between the modules uses familiar PC-based technologies such as the 132MB/s PCI bus. PXI also integrates timing and synchronisation into the system, so that you can pass signals between instruments without additional cabling.