Outlook 2011: Modular makes a move

In a nutshell, it's providing the instruments and tools needed to verify the design, manufacturing and service of electronic products across a wide set of industries, including aerospace and defence, computer, communications, wireless communications, as well as a broad set of embedded and consumer markets. And where should we expect the industry to go from here? Customers in design validation are looking for quicker time to market. When it comes to manufacturing, the focus is clearly cost of test, specifically the cost of test per unit, while shipping a quality product. This is why a lot of the tests used in design verification are different from those seen in manufacturing. Meanwhile, bench instruments are ubiquitous; their integrated human interface and optimised performance are a proven combination. Of course, modular instruments have been around for a long time – since the 1970s and the days of the Multiprogrammer product line – and are seeing increasing adoption. More recent is the trend towards open systems: first with VXI; then PXI in the modular domain and LXI for traditional instruments. Modular instrument adoption is on the upswing in the system space. It's a growing market, largely due to the desire to reduce the cost per test, rack footprint and improve the speed of the test systems through direct register access. In the future, traditional box instruments and modular products will often working together in concert and customers will have an expanded suite of choices. Within this range, a couple technologies could become disruptive. One is linking simulation to real world measurements, doing as much test as possible in the virtual world before going to physical test. Agilent's ADS (Advanced Design System) range is a strong line of products for simulating the rf world accurately and, today, these are providing leading solutions for non linear design based on X-Parameters, where these are married with physical measurements from the real rf world in order to verify the design when it is a real product. In a related area, SystemVue is being accepted as the 'architect's workbench'; the he place where software (C code), HDL, Matlab and other forms of IP can be brought together with measurements to simulate the overall performance of an rf or digital communication path and compare this to a specification or real life performance. Both of these examples are changing how engineers get their work done, bringing improvements in performance and engineering efficiency. Agilent recently made a big announcement about PXI and AXIe modular instruments, responding to a growing demand for modular systems. While we often talk about 'traditional box instruments' and 'modular instruments', there doesn't necessarily have to be a hard defined line between these two. Box instruments now use PCI Express as their internal communication structure and many are naturally modular. Now that major modular standards, such as PXI and AXIe, are also adopting PCI Express, there is an opportunity to blur the distinction between what is a traditional instrument and what is a modular instrument. There's no reason why these can't work together in some innovative ways and this could blur the distinction between the product categories. But will it affect the competitive landscape? While the barriers to entry are particularly high in the test and measurement market, the barrier to entry can fall as industry adopts modular instruments. That's one of the advantages of the modular instrument ecosystem; it provides a way for niche suppliers to deliver value added efficiently. For example, in order to test sophisticated avionics, you need all sorts of rf and microwave test equipment. But you will also need the control interface to that piece of hardware, such as MIL-STD 1553. These interfaces are readily available in the modular format. However, there are still barriers to entry at the high end. For instance, Agilent invests millions of dollars into developing custom asics in order to create high performance data converters. These deliver capability not found in commercial devices, regardless of instrument format. The role of standards Standards often play a big role in the future of T&M and AXIe has been touted as one of the standards expected to have a great impact this year. AXIe is not a competitor to other standards, such as PXI, rather, it is a scalable big brother. Agilent recently announced the largest modular instrument introduction in its history, mainly PXI. But it is also embracing AXIe because there is no limit to what can be implemented in a modular format. For example, one key trend in overall electronic design is high speed digital everywhere: fpgas, PCI Express, even digital rf. Testing these serial buses requires considerable back-end digital processing and power. AXIe is the perfect architecture for this and because it can be integrated seamlessly with PXI, this is another plus. AXIe is perfect for gigahertz data converters and it has the right kind of timing and synchronisation structures (600Gbit/s of local bus capability between slots). It is simply unmatched. AXIe is absolutely PXI's big brother. 'Big' because it is the high performance platform; it offers a larger board size with superior cooling, resulting in less rack space, delivering the density the customer wants. Timing, triggering and local bus performance are also unmatched. 'Brother' because of its compatibility. The communication protocols are so similar that an external controller talking to it cannot distinguish if it's PXI or AXIe. There is an AXIe consortium, which already has eight members, published specifications and now the first products are being announced. The two chassis from Agilent dispel the myth that AXIe means large size. One is the size of a PXI chassis, the other is half the size, but the power densities are double. A year from now, there will be no doubt whatsoever about the phenomenal performance and contribution AXIe is making to the marketplace. Larry Desjardin is the general manager of Agilent Technologies