5.
Longevity
Figure 3 provides a compari-
son of various interfaces over
the past 30-plus years. Most
noteworthy is the continuous
improvement in LAN perfor-
mance while maintaining
backward compatibility, sug-
gesting that it will continue
as a dominant force in the
computer industry for a long
time to come.
Extensions designed into the
LXI Standard ensure that it
will meet the foreseeable needs
of the test and measurement
industry, a critical requirement
of the automotive electron-
ics industry that supports an
active aftermarket and long
product lifetimes.
6.
Flexibility
Cardcage-based solutions limit
the optimal instrumentation
placement in a test rack. For
example, system creators will
find it useful to put switching
in one low-cost subsystem and
stimulus/measurement instru-
ments in another, simplifying
service and avoiding use of
high-cost, high-performance
backplanes to control slow
relays (often the case in PXI
or VXI cardcages).
LXI instrumentation enables
a better approach: A modular
switch/measure unit equipped
with an internal digital multi-
meter (DMM) and a selection
of switching cards offers a
low-cost method of creating a
dedicated switching subsystem.
The use of LAN also makes it
possible to place the LXI-based
subsystem farther from the
host PC and closer to the unit
under test.
Few cardcage-based power
supplies meet the current
requirements of many automo-
tive electronic modules and
require external power supplies
based on different architectures.
Agilent has updated existing
designs to be LXI compliant,
housing them in compact, rack-
friendly enclosures. Examples
include the Agilent N5700
series of high-power supplies
and the Agilent N6700 series
of modular supplies (Figure 4).
Figure 4. Some LXI-compliant power supplies
have size, power and functionality advan-
tages over GPIB and PXI alternatives.
5
Figure 3. LAN has evolved – and maintained backward compatibility – while other interfaces have come and gone.
72
77
82
85
91
04
69
81
84
89
95
94
97
TRS 80
IBM PC
ISA
Windows
®
VXI
GPIB
EISA
Worldwide
Web
PCI
MCA
cPCI
PXI
PCI-X
Rapid IO
PCI
Express
ARPAnet
3 Mb/s
Ethernet
10 Mb/s
IEEE
802.3
Standard
Ethernet
100 Mb/s
Gbit
Ethernet
10 Gbit
Ethernet
1970
1980
1990
2000
VME
LXI
