MIL/aero venue showcases general-purpose instruments—News Analysis
Rick Nelson, Chief Editor -- Test & Measurement World, 9/27/2007 7:01:00 AM
Autotestcon, which purports to focus on automatic test systems for the US military, is becoming the venue of choice for showcasing instruments that serve commercial applications. To be sure, the show, held last week in Baltimore, abounded with VXI instruments and synthetic-instrument systems and software that have little applicability outside the military environment. But also on display were instruments ranging from general-purpose bench-top DMMs to instruments aimed at commercial RF communications test. In addition, boundary-scan firms were out in force, although many of the targeted attendees would seem to have little input to design-for-test decisions.
Among the military-focused instruments introduced at the show was ZTEC Instruments’ ZT4610 VXI digital oscilloscopes, which target high-density aerospace and defense ATE applications. The VXI C-size instruments provide 1-GHz analog bandwidth and a maximum 4-Gsample/s sampling rate.
In addition, Aeroflex announced that its Synthetic Multifunction Adaptable Reconfigurable Test Environment (SMART^E), which includes hardware, software, test practices, and support. SMART^E is based on Aeroflex’s fifth-generation synthetic technology for providing synthetic test systems to meet the requirements for testing radar, satellite payloads, and T/R (transmit/receive) modules and subsystems for phased-array radar antennas.
Another Autotestcon product with a strong military focus was Agilent Technologies’ release of the latest version of the Agilent Virtual Rack platform. This software provides an interactive way for aerospace/defense companies to create flexible system frameworks with minimal effort in the integration, automation, maintenance and evolution of test systems.
In addition, Metrikos, in conjunction with Huntron, demonstrated at the show its patent-pending near-field signature-analysis technology, which supports close proximity sensing of EM fields emanating from active or passive circuitry; it’s non-contact measurement capability could make it particularly useful for troubleshooting conformally coated boards in military applications.
But many products introduced at Autotestcon seemingly had as much commercial appeal as military. For example, Aeroflex at announced its new modular PXI RF test platform for wireless applications up to 6 GHz. With this platform, the company is targeting not only military/aerospace test applications but commercial cellular ones as well.
Here are some other new instruments on display with wide commercial applicability:
• Keithley Instruments announced two new additions to its Series 2600 SourceMeter instruments for semiconductor parametric analysis and testing. The Models 2635 and 2636 provide resolutions as fine as 1 fA to support test of semiconductor, optoelectronic, and nanotechnology devices.
• National Instruments announced the release of the NI PXIe-5672, an RF vector signal generator that delivers signal generation from 250 kHz to 2.7 GHz, 20 MHz of instantaneous bandwidth, and real-time data streaming at up to 25 Msample/s.
• JTAG Technologies announced its ProDFT service for testability analysis and report generation. A ProDFT report equips the user to optimize a board or system design for testability as well as to rapidly prepare the tests using JTAG Technologies’ ProVision development suite.
• Data Translation highlighted its new TEMPpoint series of temperature-measurement instruments. Each TEMPpoint instrument is a standalone box offering 48 separate 24-bit resolution inputs, each with its own A/D converter and CJC as well as a USB or Ethernet port for connecting to a PC.
• Geotest-Marvin Test Systems at debuted a slew of PXI products, including standards module, differential digitizer, a PXI express instrument, 3U and 6U chasses, a signal generator, a digital I/O instrument, and controllers.
• Keithley highlighted its new Series 3700 system-switch/multimeter and plug-in card family, which it describes as its next-generation platform of switching and integrated digital multimeter (DMM) test solutions.
• Pickering Interfaces showcased its new range of high performance, high density RF switching solutions. The new RF switching modules have been recently introduced, each having high performance switching characteristics to 3 GHz and are usable to 3.5 GHz.
The prevalence of instrument products with commercial applications at Autotestcon may be influenced by the military’s increased focus on commercial off-the-shelf products, or it may be due to the demise of broad-based shows like Wescon. In any event, Autotestcon is a show worth attending even if you are not involved directly in MIL/aerospace test applications. Next year’s show is slated for September 8-11 in Salt Lake City, Utah.
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