Instrument drives aid ATE system design: News from Acqiris USA

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Acqiris has introduced a range of class-compliant Interchangeable Virtual Instrument (IVI) drivers that support the company's full range of digitisers. The IVI drivers, available at no charge, provide a set of standard commands for a given class of instruments that simplify programming and instrument swapping among data conversion products. Developed mainly for the ATE market, the drivers comply with IviScope Class (IVI-4.1) specifications, which are designed to support typical oscilloscopes as well as common extended functionalities found in more complex data acquisition instruments, such as synthetic instrumentation (SI).

Specifically, the drivers can be used in conjunction with the specifications outlined in the IVI-4.1 IviScopeWaveformMeasurement and IviScopeAverageAcquisition extension groups.

The new drivers support all major test platforms supported by Acqiris, including PCI, PXI, CompactPCI and VXI, facilitating hardware independence without rewriting software.

They are implemented as a Microsoft Component Object Model (COM)-based IVI-COM driver that enables the drivers to operate seamlessly in numerous integrated development environments (IDEs).

An IVI-C interface on the drivers allow for additional hardware and software compatibility.

The IVI standard, supported and maintained by the IVI Foundation, builds on top of the VISA (Virtual Instrument Software Architecture) layer.

The aim of IVI is to give users a degree of instrument interchangeability, instrument simulation and, in some cases, higher performance.

The new Acqiris IVI drivers help foster the commitment of instrument manufacturers to industry standards.

Acqiris is in the process of registering the new driver with the IVI Foundation.

On the completion of this process, in approximately one to two months, the driver will be downloadable from the Acqiris website.

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