What engineers want in DAQ systems (continued)
A continuation of our interview with Fred Molinari, president and founder of Data Translation, which appeared in the October 2010 Viewoint column.
By Lawrence Maloney, Contributing Editor -- Test & Measurement World, 10/1/2010 12:00:00 AM
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Q: How
would you assess the pace of economic recovery in your segment of the test-and-measurement
business?
A: July was our best month in a very long time, which is unusual
because it is a traditional time for vacations and plant shutdowns,
particularly in Europe. But our industry has
been in a trough for a long time, and our customers are finally working down
their inventories and beginning to restock what they need to support existing
products. Introduction of new products is coming slowly, however, because of
the uncertainty that still exists about the economy.
Q: What are some of the
differences you see in what customers want from data acquisition?
A: End-user customers, such
as R&D labs, are very interested in ease of use, so they want built-in
programming software and data-acquisition modules that can be connected easily,
just as they would a desktop oscilloscope in a lab. OEMs, which make up about
40% to 50% of our business, are looking for modules that fit easily, both
mechanically and electrically, into their larger system. The data-acquisition
software also must be compatible with the overall software infrastructure of
their machine, which is typically Windows.
Price is also very important
for OEMs. Their end products have a price target, which means that our data-acquisition
technology must sometimes be modified or streamlined to meet that price point,
and we are willing to do this if the order volume is large enough.
Q: How do you
differentiate Data Translation's approach to data-acquisition from that of other
companies in the business?
A:
We believe that we are leaders when it comes to the accuracy that we put into
the design and manufacture of our products. And that is very important,
particularly for OEMs. We do have a large catalog of standard products, and
customers can choose the features and characteristics they need for data
acquisition. As already noted, we also build in more software capability so
that customers can more easily use our products.
Our
key niche is really to take USB and now Ethernet to give companies highly
accurate measurement capability in a huge variety of industries and
applications. Our customer base includes some 3000 companies in a wide variety
of fields.
Q: And your approach
to software is to encourage open systems?
A:
Very much so. We have developed our own software package, Measure Foundry, that
offers a powerful, full-featured application-development environment. You can
develop applications easily and quickly with the drag-and-drop graphical
interface.
Most
of our customers work on PCs in a Windows environment, so we've made our
instruments and modules readily compatible with our customers' own application-development
environment. Every time there is a Windows upgrade, such as the new 64-bit
Windows 7 operating system, we upgrade our products. At the same time, our
instruments and modules are compatible with other popular software packages
used for applications development, such as LabView and Matlab.
Q: How would you rate
the popularity of the various buses used in data acquisition?
A:
USB is by far the predominant bus today. We still sell boards that go into PCI
and other buses for certain niche applications, but most data-acquisition work overwhelmingly
calls for USB. We are seeing more interest in Ethernet, particularly in
applications where customers want to share data and measurements in real time
with colleagues. Many corporate IT departments, however, have serious concerns
about putting out R&D data over Ethernet.
Q: Do you see rising
interest in USB 3.0, the so-called SuperSpeed USB?
A:
This is really a 2011 story. The chips needed for interfacing devices are still
under development. Initially, we don't expect to see more than a couple of USB
3.0 ports on PCs, so USB 2.0 will still be predominant for a long time. USB 3.0
does represent a tenfold speed improvement, however, so it will increasingly be
in demand in high-performance applications that call for very high data
throughput.
Q: Looking back over
the 37-year history of your company, what do you see as some of its most
significant contributions?
A:
We started out building boards that interfaced with a standard 4-bit
microcomputer. Then, we expanded that mission to providing analog I/O
capability, as well as companion software we called "open layers," for a
variety of standard bus structures. Digital Equipment Corp. was a key customer.
Over
time, we extended this I/O capability to more and more types of data, as well
as to converting analog data to digital. Eventually, we branded this technology
evolution as data acquisition. Among other contributions, we were one of the
first companies to support the USB interface, and we developed the first
multifunction data-acquisition board.
Q: Which global regions
are leading the way in driving growth for your company?
A:
We are strongest in North America and in Europe, where we have our subsidiary
office in Germany.
And we are currently seeing a very nice recovery in business in Germany. In
all, we have distribution in 40 countries.
Asia
is still a challenge for us, although we are actively pursuing business there,
particularly in China, Japan,
and Korea.
And we are having success with our OEM customers who sell all over the world.
Read the first part of this interview.
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