Test and measurement [Technology analysis and forecast]

In ever greater numbers, new entries in the test and measurement field are heeding that litany of characteristics so prayed for by all electronikers: smaller, faster, cheaper-and easier to use. Bulky benchtop instruments are giving way to portable counterparts. The latest generation of microprocessors is boosting test equipment speed, while (relatively) inexpensive instruments are becoming the norm rather than the exception. Perhaps most important in what may come to be known as The Age of Complexity, manufacturers are steadily improving the user-interfaces of their instruments, trying to make them both easy to learn and a snap to relearn. The author discusses application specific instruments, the trend to multi-instrument boxes, and test feedback to manufacturing to improve boards.