Evaluation Engineering - 12

MODULAR TEST

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VIAVI Solutions CMP architecture compared with an SDR architecture.

offers a mechanical, stable industry platform but has a higher system cost. LXI
instruments are easiest to integrate as
they are based on Ethernet connection
and can be operated in any network, remotely or directly from a laptop."
Mark Pickard, product management director at VIAVI Solutions, said, "Modular
test is a paradigm that offers hardware
and software components that can be
configured into customized solutions to
meet specific customer test needs. These
modular solutions can be modified and
scaled to evolve along with the customer's
test requirements."
VIAVI Solutions offers the Configurable
Modular Platform (CMP), which includes
modular products based on AXIe. "Similar
to other modular standards, such as PXI,
AXIe consolidates common infrastructure components into a card-slot chassis," said Pickard. "The chassis provides
common infrastructure needed for each
module, including power, cooling, data
transport, and triggering....AXIe is well
suited for high-performance applications, providing more physical real estate,
higher power handling, and higher data
bandwidth compared to other modular
standards, such as PXI. These enhancements make AXIe the perfect platform for
applications such as high-performance
RF and high-bandwidth signal generation
and acquisition."
Subbaiah Pemmaiah, application engineer, Copper Mountain Technologies
(CMT), commented that increased test
complexity is driving the need for flexible
test instruments for lab, production, and
field test environments. "These instruments need to be easily maintainable,
have fewer potential points of failure,
have adequate memory storage space, be

EVALUATION ENGINEERING MAY/JUNE 2020

inexpensive, and yet produce fast, accurate, and reliable measurements," he said.
To meet these requirements, CMT
introduced USB vector network analyzers for which the measurement module
is separated from the processing module. "USB VNAs bring the measurement
data to any external Windows or Linux
PC using the VNA software," Pemmaiah
explained. "All data manipulation (except
for digitization) and control occurs on the
external PC."
"For Keithley, modular architecture is
all about flexibility in both the testing an
engineer is able to perform with our products and in the ways they can perform
those tests," said Brad Odhner, technical
marketing manager. "Many customers
come to us knowing they want to eventually expand manufacturing capabilities or
R&D functionality. These customers want
the ability to purchase part of a system
now and expand it later."
Keithley offers several interface options. "Our modern instruments support
all the basics-USB, LAN, GPIB, etc.-and
most support LXI control with their own
webpages for simple remote capabilities,"
Odhner said. "However, our go-to architecture is Keithley's Test Script Processor
(TSP). TSP is an aspect of our instruments'
firmware that allows the execution of
code written by the user, similar to how
one might program an Arduino." TSP includes an extensible communication bus
called TSP-Link, which allows Keithley's
instruments to send commands and share
data. "In this way, our customers can create 'mainframe-less networks' of instruments that can be seamlessly expanded,"
he said.
"Newark offers two main types of
modular test products: software-based

and hardware-based modular architectures," said Maureen Lipps, product manager. "Many modular test architectures
are a combination of both hardware and
software."
Lipps said software-based modular architectures usually consist of one piece of
test equipment with all the features built
into the hardware. "A customer can add or
later purchase a software package or bundle
which activates each of the extra features
that they need," she said. "The advantages
of software modules are that initial costs
are minimal, the system can be designed
for specific needs, and it can be upgraded
immediately with a key code or download."
However, she said, future upgrades are limited by initial hardware setup.
"Hardware-defined modular test products consist of a mainframe or chassis
base unit which usually consists of a
power supply, bus communication, and
a reference clock along with slots for hardware modules for various test operations,"
Lipps continued. Hardware modules are
usually plug-and-play and are flexible. "As
with software architectures, the initial
costs can be minimal and can be configured for specific needs," she said.
According to Christian Fischer, senior
director, product management, T&M systems and projects at Rohde & Schwarz, a
modular test platform allows the configuration of a tester by different hardware
modules to meet a specific application.
"This configuration and exchange of modules is very easy and can be performed
also by the end-user," he said. "This means
one tester can be configured for different
applications without the need to change
to a different tester. Functionality which
is not needed can be removed"-thereby
achieving minimum cost and footprint.

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Evaluation Engineering

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