PXI instruments answer production test demands

A dedicated PXI chassis with all the computer processing built in can provide a particularly dependable test package for the manufacturing environment.

Electronics manufacturing provides new and evolving challenges, with new test systems continually being required to keep pace with emerging consumer electronic devices.

Each device under test may have several functions, each of which may require signal injection, monitoring and pass/fail notification.

Take for example a device such as the in-vehicle navigation unit.

This incorporates visual, audio, power, and RF components.

Tests could include signal injection, signal monitoring, plus digital bus and data stream capture.

The traditional approach of specialised test hardware is becoming more frequently a higher cost option with reduced flexibility.

With each major update in technology a specialised test system, without the capability to adapt, might need supplementing or replacing.

With increasing product volumes and shorter lead times in electronics manufacturing a better solution is a modular system of test hardware, providing an alternative with lower cost, reusability, high throughput, expandability and easy adaptation to differing requirements.

Dataquest Solutions provides two possible routes for the manufacturer, one PC based using the PCI/PCI-X slot, the other using a PXI chassis with all the computer processing built in - and it is this latter method that provides a particularly dependable test package for the manufacturing environment and worthy of further mention.

PXI allows for any combination of instrumentation cards with chassis commonly available with five to 20 slots, each slot capable of taking any card combination, be it a multichannel analogue card or digital I/O.

Trigger, timing and synchronisation signals are linked through a back-plane inside the chassis without the need for additional wiring.

Computer control of this hardware does not require a separate PC, the chassis holding a controller card with embedded CPU and memory, this makes the system overall more rugged and compact, yet can still be used with a standard screen and keyboard.

The choice of PC instrumentation cards to use within the PXI chassis is important to its versatility.

Dataquest Solutions provides instrumentation from Spectrum one of Europe's leading manufacturers in this area, with one of the largest ranges of fast and ultrafast signal capture, waveform generation and digital I/O cards on the market, with sample rates from 1Ksample/s to 200Msample/s and deep onboard memory.

Special data streaming also allows direct transfer of data to computer memory or hard disk with signal read, write and digital pattern control effectively handled with triggering systems able to monitor pulsewidth, levels and patterns.

Triggers can be externally derived or by monitoring the acquired signals under test.

However, the versatility of a modular system using slot in cards is only truly achieved when taken in combination with the capabilities of the software.

Users such systems based on Spectrum hardware have the option to use the extensive Windows/Linux driver suite.

This allows programming in C++, Visual Basic and Delphi, being popular with engineers who like to get to the "grass roots" of instrumentation control, thus able to adapt the system to just about any task, or to make minor tweaks in response to changing demands.

For those who prefer an intuitive package for faster development we also provide drivers for LabView, Dasylab, Agilent VEE and Matlab plus programming examples.

A package called SBench is also provided at no additional cost.

This allows rapid configuration of the system, at a glance viewing of signals and logging to memory/hard drive as well as an element of post-processing.

Finally it should be noted that the PXI system may be configured to used with LAN, conventional serial, USB and GPIB, so existing test instrumentation based on these communication bus systems can still be operated at the same time, hence the introduction of a new modular system can be complete or complementary.

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