TRADE NEWS: LXI Consortium Announces Successful First Open Membership Meeting
Consortium’s LXI Specification Release Planned for First Quarter of 2005
San Diego, Calif., Dec. 13, 2004 -- T he LXI Consortium, a recently formed standards organization, today announced tremendous industry response to its first open membership meeting held in Salt Lake City last month. The two-day event focused on LXI (LAN extensions for instrumentation) specifications, membership recruitment and technical discussions.
LXI is a next-generation, LAN-based modular platform standard for automated test systems. With LXI, engineers can leverage the software and measurement accuracy from their GPIB instruments to the test system. The LXI standard provides a basis for long life-cycle instrumentation implementations that are not limited by bandwidth, software or computer-dependent architectures.
The meeting was attended by more than 20 industry-leading test and measurement companies from the United States, Europe and Asia. Fourteen companies have joined the consortium, with additional membership commitments expected.
“We are very excited about the results of this initial meeting and continued support of this industry standards’ group,” said Bob Vogel, of Aeroflex and a member of the LXI Consortium. “The level of participation contributed to a high-energy forum to discuss the details and direction of the specification.”
“LAN-based instruments are in our laboratories now, and will soon be in the hands of our customers” said Ben Bailey of Measurement Computing Corp. and a member of the LXI Consortium. “By defining standards for communication and data organization between LAN-based instruments and computers, the consortium is ensuring that customers will be able to purchase, with confidence, products that work together and with all popular software platforms. The intent of the LXI Consortium is not with technical breakthroughs or controlling the market, but with providing our customers a trouble-free experience no matter who they purchase from.”
Technical and marketing committees were formed during the meeting with a planned formal specification release during the first quarter of 2005. Changes in the scope of the specification were adopted, which address a broader range of industry application areas. Instrumentation designers will now have the flexibility to develop LXI-compliant hardware tailored for their application whether it is portable, bench top, distributed or rack-and-stack in a scalable, modular format.
Current members of the LXI Consortium include Aeroflex, Agilent Technologies, Analogic, Bruel & Kjaer, California Instruments, Complete Networks, Elgar Electronics Corp., IOTech, Keithley Instruments, Measurement Computing Corp., Phase Matrix, Pickering Interfaces, Teradyne and VXI Technology.
About the LXI Consortium
LXI is the next-generation, LAN-based modular architecture standard for automated test systems managed by the LXI Consortium, a not-for-profit corporation made up of leading test and measurement companies. The group’s goals are to develop, support and promote the LXI standard. LXI’s compact, flexible package, high-speed I/O, and prolific use of LAN provides scaleable and modular solutions that meet the needs of aerospace defense engineers developing radar, electronic warfare, satellite and military communications systems, as well as addressing a broad range of industrial and commercial applications.
A backgrounder on LXI is available here. Additional information about the LXI Consortium’s product offerings, licensing, specifications and membership is available at www.lxistandard.org.