What will drive PXI?

When I was first introduced to PXI, I saw it as a response to the high cost of laboratory test instrumentation. The ability to create any of several useful instruments from a handful of building blocks held appeal as a lower-cost way of handling occasional, but urgent, equipment requirements. It was difficult to financially justify purchasing an instrument that would see only infrequent use. It was easier to justify purchasing a card that could turn what I had into what I needed.

The needs of R&D engineers seem to have driven much of the product development in PXI’s first decade, but that’s changing. As PXI matured, it became increasingly interesting to those involved in manufacturing test. Now, manufacturing test is becoming a major market for PXI, and the application’s needs are affecting new PXI product development, as the stories in this issue attest.

What will drive PXI product development going forward? Will manufacturing test grow to become the dominant market, causing new PXI product development to focus on refinements that improve manufacturing efficiency rather than on stretching technology to widen R&D possibilities? Or will R&D needs continue to drive technological innovation in PXI, and then migrate to manufacturing test in support of the products that R&D develops?

Or both?

Contact Richard A. Quinnell at richquinnell@att.net