Yokogawa - LXI compliant Ethernet interface for oscilloscopes

22nd July 2009

ES Admin

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LXI compliant Ethernet options are now available for the Yokogawa DL9000 Series of digital and mixed-signal oscilloscopes and the SB5000 vehicle serial bus analyser. The new options, designated /C9 and /C12, meet the Class C requirements of the LXI Standard.

LXI (LAN eXtensions for instrumentation) is a next-generation interface for test and measurement instruments, and is being promoted as a successor for GPIB. Based on industry-standard Ethernet technology, LXI is designed to provide modularity, flexibility and performance in small and medium-sized systems.

LXI’s compact and flexible package, high-speed input and output and ability to implement reliable measurements meet the needs of R&D and manufacturing engineers delivering electronics for the aerospace/defence, automotive, industrial, medical, and consumer electronics markets.

While GPIB has been widely used as a standard interface for test and measurement instruments, its speed cannot fulfil the requirements for quickly transferring large amounts of data acquired by newer measuring instruments, which have long acquisition memories. In addition, traditional GPIB solutions require a relatively expensive GPIB card in a host PC along with an expensive cable.

In response, the LXI Consortium (www.lxistandard.org) was established by several test and measurement manufacturers to provide a new easy-to-use interface for measurement instruments based on LAN technology with sufficient transfer speed and at low cost. The interface also makes it easy to migrate to LXI from traditional GPIB systems.

Currently, more than 20 test and measurement manufacturers provide LXI-compliant products and the total number of LXI-compatible products is above 1100: a figure which is expected to accelerate in the future.

The LXI standard defines three different classes which a device can support, depending on its functionality. Class C is the fundamental LXI class; Class B is Class C with the addition of the IEEE-1588 precision clock synchronisation protocol; and Class A is Class C plus Class B plus a hardware trigger bus.

The majority of standalone LXI compliant measurement instruments, including the Yokogawa DL9000 oscilloscopes and the SB5000 serial bus analyser fitted with the /C9 or /C12 options, support Class C. A modification kit to upgrade existing Yokogawa units will be released shortly.