Test & Measurement Industry Update: Instrumentation Gets Smarter and Faster

According to LeCroy's Lauterbach, a big advance in test and measurement has been the proliferation of application-specific software. "If someone wants to set up a test for a new wireless product, there are test suites for the specific test you want, and you don't have to write it yourself."

The flexibility software offers to users also makes it easier for vendors to adapt their products to specific applications. Said Keithley's Rae, "Software, in general, has impacted our customers in the flexibility you can have with an instrument. It is easier for us, as a vendor, to add features and roll out new capabilities in a product over time without huge investments in hardware and new components."

"Most standalone test instruments have migrated from embedded processors and proprietary user interfaces to integrated PCs and Windows-based user interfaces," explained Colin Shepard, vice president and general manager of the Performance Oscilloscope Product Line at Tektronix. "This not only makes them easier to use as standalone instruments, but generally eases the transition to integrated test systems using software on a PC controller."

The Windows operating system has dominated test and measurement software in ways that benefit users and vendors alike. "Windows has had a huge impact in test and measurement," Derme said, especially on the presentation aspect of instrumentation. "If you look at the basic elements of instrumentation, there is acquisition of the signal, the analysis, and the presentation. That presentation aspect has been standardized by Windows. Before Windows, it was not easy to have graphical interfaces on the PC."

Presentation, publication, and sharing of data have all been affected by Windows. "It ties back to LXI," said Rae. "Windows is the interface to the Web. We're starting to look at various Windows interfaces appropriate for instrumentation. It's what customers find more intuitive than having to learn a completely different kind of interface," she added.

For vendors and users, Windows can present its own set of challenges. According to Gutterman, "Windows is not a deterministic software platform, which means if you have a real-time application, you have to be very creative to do it in Windows. Windows may need to do something else at the same time you need to do a measurement." Gutterman sees the advantage of Windows as enabling application-specific programs. "You don't need to create your own home-brewed test software anymore."

According to Jack Cowper, vice president of sales and marketing in North America for Rohde & Schwarz, "We tend to use off-the-shelf operating systems - including Microsoft - as the core of our instruments. But we see the advancement in software outside the box, with chipset manufacturers who implement hardware or software interfaces into the chips." This enables Rohde & Schwarz to make measurements faster, making the end user's testing on the production line quicker, said Cowper.

Another challenge is the fact that users have a love/hate relationship with Microsoft, according to Lauterbach, but "in general, everyone knows how to use Windows. So, if you're going to be an instrument vendor or user and you want everyone to know how to run the instrument, a Windows-based platform is probably the easiest thing for a large group of people to know, understand, and use."