TRADE NEWS: LXI Consortium's First PlugFest in Europe Shows High Interest Among Vendors, Customers.SAN DIEGO -- The LXI Adj. 1. lxi - being one more than sixty 61, sixty-one cardinal - being or denoting a numerical quantity but not order; "cardinal numbers" Consortium's fifth PlugFest event was the first to be held outside of North America. The event, which took place April 25-27 in Munich, Germany, had 69 registered attendees representing more than 25 different organizations -- manufacturers, system integrators, customers, universities and the press. LXI member Rohde & Schwarz (R&S) hosted the event at its local training center. "It was a privilege to welcome so many enthusiastic participants to Europe's first LXI PlugFest," said Roland Steffen, executive vice president of test and measurement for R&S. "This successful event is just one sign that European interest in LXI is growing rapidly as more people become familiar with the capabilities and benefits of the standard." A key goal of each PlugFest is to help member companies verify compliance with the LXI specification. In Munich, products from R&S and VXI (VME EXtensions for Instrumentation) A peripheral bus specialized for data acquisition and real time control systems. Introduced in 1987, VXI uses all Eurocard form factors and adds trigger lines, a local bus and other functions suited for measurement applications. Technology were tested for compliance in key areas of the specification, including LAN (Local Area Network) A communications network that serves users within a confined geographical area. The "clients" are the user's workstations typically running Windows, although Mac and Linux clients are also used. functionality, Web interface, programming API and hardware triggering. The R&S SMATE SMATE Science, Mathematics and Technology Education (Western Washington University program) and SMU SMU Southern Methodist University SMU Solid (Waste) Management Unit SMU Saint Mary's University (Halifax, Nova Scotia; Philippines) SMU Singapore Management University SMU Saint Mary's University of Minnesota families of vector signal generators and VXI Technology's EX1048 Precision Thermocouple Instrument have since been certified as LXI compliant. The LXI meeting included a popular half-day tutorial session about the standard, taught by the engineers who developed it. This will be a regular feature at future LXI meetings; anyone interested in learning more about LXI is welcome and encouraged to attend. "Rohde and Schwarz was a terrific host for this meeting," said Bob Rennard, president of the LXI Consortium. "We took another major step forward with the multi-vendor demonstration system that will be on display at AUTOTESTCON in September. The latest version of the system shows the flexibility of LAN-based triggering within a variety of software environments, including National Instruments LabVIEW, The MathWorks MATLAB (MATrix LABoratory) A programming language for technical computing from The MathWorks, Natick, MA (www.mathworks.com). Used for a wide variety of scientific and engineering calculations, especially for automatic control and signal processing, MATLAB runs on Windows, Mac and , Data Translation Measure Foundry and Microsoft Visual Studio Microsoft Visual Studio is Microsoft's flagship software development product for computer programmers. It centers on an integrated development environment which lets programmers create standalone applications, web sites, web applications, and web services that run on any platforms ." The next PlugFest is scheduled for July 25-27, 2006, in Cleveland, Ohio. LXI member company Keithley Instruments will host the event. Look for a detailed agenda on the LXI Web site in late June. About LXI and the LXI Consortium LXI is the LAN-based successor to GPIB (General Purpose Interface Bus) An IEEE 488 standard parallel interface used for attaching sensors and programmable instruments to a computer. Using a 24-pin connector, up to 15 devices can be daisy chained together. HP's version is the HPIB. . The LXI standard goes beyond GPIB to provide additional capabilities that reduce the time it takes to set up, configure and debug test systems. LXI also helps integrators leverage the time and effort already invested in system software and architecture. The standard is managed by the LXI Consortium, a not-for-profit corporation comprised of leading test and measurement companies. The group's goals are to develop, support and promote the LXI standard. LXI's flexible packaging, high-speed I/O (Input/Output) The transfer of data between the CPU and a peripheral device. Every transfer is an output from one device and an input to another. See PC input/output. I/O - Input/Output , and prolific use of LAN address a broad range of commercial, industrial, aerospace and military applications. Additional information about LXI-compliant products as well as licensing, specifications and consortium membership is available at www.lxistandard.org. |
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