Ethernet-based instrumentation for ATE

The emerging trend in the instrumentation industry is a move away from established parallel communications interfaces, such as GPIB and MXI-2, towards high-speed serial interfaces. The computer industry has adopted this philosophy and migrated nearly all peripheral connections to USB or Firewire. This trend is continuing with the elimination of plug-in style interfaces and the adoption of high-speed serial links. Many instrumentation manufacturers have followed these advances and introduced products that are based upon the industry standard Ethernet interface. Software protocol functionality is also a major concern; the protocol loading on a typical TCP/IP stack can potentially reduce the throughput of the test system. Leveraging the advantages of TCP/IP in ATE applications, or possibly incorporating alternatives to this would also be discussed. The concept of this migration to a dedicated Ethernet instrumentation community would be discussed in detail. Advantages and disadvantages would be identified, along with clear technical recommendations.