An integrated graphical development and debug environment supporting a multi-function parallel analog test instrument

This paper describes a software environment for experimentation, test development, and debugging that will address the needs of the test engineer. The environment allows the test engineer to interactively control multiple source and measurement functions from a single graphical environment. The environment also supports mathematical operations on source and measurement functions. During the experimentation and development phases, source and measurement information is clearly visible in a manner consistent with traditional bench top instrumentation. To support automated testing, the environment can be used to generate test code that reflects the state of the environment. This code can also be used to provide examples of how to program the instrument for various functions to assist in the creation of automatic test programs.