Evaluation Engineering - 11

years and includes the ROI, not only for
the initial product, but for its derivatives,
which can extend well beyond the initial
product's life cycle."

Marvin Test Solutions'
Model GX6188 from its
GENASYS switching
product line.

some of costs that are part of the price
equation for PXI products. However, the
challenge for modular instrumentation
vendors, in many ways, is no different
from other instrumentation vendors
when one is looking to deliver test solutions that can test state-of-the-art products-high-performance test requires
high-performance components, which
drives the cost of instrumentation. In
particular, the challenge for modular
instrumentation suppliers can be the
high cost of key components such as
FPGAs, which are essential to achieve the
desired performance and form factor or
functional density required by customers. To help mitigate these high costs,
modular instrumentation vendors need
to take the long view when it comes to
pricing products-essentially looking at
a product's ROI that extends over several

Pickering's 2- and
4-slot modular LXI/USB chassis.

Stasonis, Pickering: "As I am also the
president of the PXI Systems Alliance,
let me put on my PXISA hat. Users of the
PXI modular standard want all of the key
features I mentioned earlier. But for defense contractors and military branches,
backward compatibility is equally important. So, in addition to faster demands
and higher bandwidths, it all must work
with older PXI Modules. In the past year,
the PXISA has updated virtually every
section of the PXI and PXIe specifications
to improve power capabilities and adopt
the newer generation of the PCI Express
bus, and to have these newer products
"play nice" with their predecessors."
Arebi and Malatest, Per Vices: "By shifting the focus from hardware to software,
SDRs are able to provide multifunctional
equipment that can easily be altered
through simple software modifications
to offer a solution for various use cases.
Companies like Per Vices are able to meet
the demands of a wide range of customers through a customizable platform
that is both frequency agile and scalable. Through a combination of multifunctional abilities and the integration
of various components into one platform,
the overall cost is limited to a single unit.
Furthermore, having one platform that
addresses many needs allows companies
like Per Vices to realize the economies of
scale and offer solutions at a lower cost
than those built for a single purpose."

PXI vs. LXI and VXI
PXI has become the industry modular
standard over the past 20+ years and
LXI has also had strong growth,
while it appears VXI's
time is now long-past.
Still, with many legacy
systems still operating
on VXI modulation, it will
likely keep a notable market presence for a while longer. Here's what
vendors shared as thoughts regarding the
PXI/LXI/VXI market balance.

Dewey, Marvin Test Solutions: "PXI is the
dominant card modular standard today.
We don't have visibility into the current
VXI market numbers, but with only (four)
dominant VXI vendors remaining, we
believe the modular instrumentation
market share for VXI has been decreasing, whereas PXI, according to Frost &
Sullivan, has been increasing more than
10% CAGR. Projections are that the PXI
market will see revenue of $1 billion by
2020. The remaining strength for VXI is
in specific-military programs that have
a strong need to maintain compatibility
with legacy VXI test systems and associated legacy test programs. For commercial/industrial ATE test needs, we see
an increasing demand to convert from
the VXI to the PXI platform. LXI is not a
card-modular standard and is rather the
successor of GPIB. Some instruments, especially those that support high-power
applications, will remain 19" rack boxes,
and those are all LXI instruments."
Arebi and Malatest, Per Vices: "LXI provides flexibility and freedom for host systems, the capabilities of Linux (or other)based systems are growing and therefore
leaving behind the PXI architecture,
which is dependent on PC (Windows)
systems. We strongly recommend using
a Linux operating system when using our
modular instruments. Providing users
with access to high-performance computing environments, including a variety of
applications for programming purposes,
and a more comprehensive development
environment is essential for the full utility
of modular systems to be realized."
Stasonis, Pickering: "While LXI is a growing market as is PXI, the VXI market-with
a few exceptions-has been relegated to
legacy test systems. The majority of the
big players in test have obsoleted their
products. There are very few companies
producing VXI products at this time, and
we don't see VXI holding on much longer.
This is the primary reason that we have
promoted our PXI products as replacements for VXI switching applications.
We have cross-referenced the popular
VXI switch modules to the equivalent PXI
switching from Pickering. As for LXI, this
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Evaluation Engineering

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