LXI Consortium Approves New Version of the Standard

The LXI Consortium has approved the newest version of the Standard (Version 1.2) and certified five new Class C products and one Class B product at the 10th General Meeting and PlugFest in Munich Germany, October 9-11. Member company Rohde & Schwarz, hosted the meeting at their training facilities.

Rohde & Schwarz conducted Class B testing during the General Meeting. The LXI Consortium also conducted a multi-vendor demonstration that showcased the ability of LXI-compliant instruments from multiple vendors to work together.

"The Consortium is very excited to see the rapid industry adoption of the LXI standard among test manufacturers. The Class C Certification level has seen considerable growth as evidenced by these new products," said Bob Rennard, President of the LXI Consortium. "Since our last meeting we have added over 100 new products and now have more than 430 LXI-certified products in 57 product families being marketed to test engineers."

A key goal of each PlugFest is to help member companies verify compliance with the LXI specification. In Munich, products were tested for compliance in key areas of the specification, including LAN implementation, Web interface and programming API. The requirement for LXI-compliant instruments to support LAN and provide IVI instrument drivers enables them to be programmed by software environments including LabVIEW, MATLAB, Measure Foundry, and Visual Studio. The testing process also included interface bridges that enable integrators to create "hybrid" systems that utilize non-LXI equipment alongside LXI-compliant devices. This capability will help system creators leverage their existing investments - and expertise - in other architectures such as GPIB, VXI, and PXI.

Introduced in 2005, the LXI Standard has been rapidly adopted by 46 companies in the test-and-measurement industry, according to the consortium. They recognize LXI as the natural successor to GPIB, and that it was time for instruments to go beyond GPIB to make it easier for test system designers and integrators to create faster, more efficient systems. To date, over 430 products have been certified as being compliant with the LXI Specification.

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