Live from PXI TAC 2017: How to cope with the testing challenges in the intelligent era?

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the birth of PXI technology. PXI TAC 2017, hosted by NI ( National Instruments , referred to as "NI"), was recently held in Shenzhen. As the most influential PXI professional forum in the industry, PXI TAC has been held for 14 consecutive years. This time, PXI TAC returns to its essence, takes users as the core, focuses on user applications, and allows users to see the most cutting-edge intelligent test technologies and trends, as well as the direction of hot applications. Let's follow the test and measurement editor to learn about the relevant content.

As we all know, PXI TAC has accumulated 14 years of experience since its establishment in 2004 and has become the largest and most influential PXI technology professional forum in China. This forum covers all popular high-tech fields, including satellite, 5G, autonomous driving, Internet of Things, 802.11ax... Nearly a thousand visitors attended the forum, and many media came to report on it, which was an unprecedented event.

Figure 1. PXI TAC 2017 was grandly held in Shenzhen

NI R&D Vice President reviews 20 years of continuous innovation in PXI technology

Looking back at the development history of PXI, PXI technology was born in 1997, FPGA technology was introduced into the PXI platform in 2004, the industry's first PXI platform vector network analyzer was launched in 2010, the industry's first vector signal transceiver was released in 2012, the industry's first PXI system based on the third-generation PCIe bus technology was launched in 2015, and three new products were released in 2017: MXI Thunderbolt, PXI new arbitrary waveform generator and 802.11ax WTS-IS 1.3. NI is the inventor of PXI technology and has been leading the innovation of this technology for 20 years.

Figure 2. NI Vice President of R&D Steve Warntjes delivered a keynote speech

In his keynote speech, Steve Warntjes, Vice President of R&D at NI, said: "NI adheres to an open and flexible platform strategy. The advantage of the PXI platform is that it can ensure that each module works together without over-definition. For unnecessary parts, manufacturers can add and shield the module."

Regarding how PXI improves timing and synchronization, Steve Warntjes said: "Integrated timing and synchronization can greatly improve productivity. PXI was born for automation. The PXI chassis contains a dedicated 10 MHz differential clock and differential trigger to mitigate errors in multi-device synchronization."

Another advantage of PXI is high throughput and low latency, he said, although the throughput of AT systems is often overlooked, data bottlenecks can impair test speed. Latency is always taken into account when designing a system, and PXI delivers commands and receives data at sub-microsecond speeds, which is 1,000 times faster than Gigabit Ethernet.

Figure 3. Advantages of the PXI platform over traditional instruments

Compared with traditional software architecture, the advantages of PXI are self-evident. The software of the PXI system is located on the host and can configure user-defined measurements and analysis in real time. Users can further flexibly define functions by deploying measurement and analysis algorithms to FPGA. Signal processing accounts for more than 80% of the measurement time. Traditional instruments cannot upgrade the CPU, but the CPU of PXI can be updated, which can greatly improve performance and achieve minimal investment.

Meeting the test challenges brought by the explosion of smart devices with NI’s open and flexible PXI platform

Nowadays, the complexity of smart devices is constantly increasing, and multiple technologies are integrated. Faced with the explosion of smart devices, engineers need more flexible and highly reliable smart test systems. In the exhibition area of ​​this forum, PXI solutions and application examples in various popular high-tech fields are very eye-catching.

1) FPGA, SMU combined with flexible software LabVIEW to help intelligent testing

Figure 4. PXI-based high-performance FPGA and measurement unit (SMU)

NI FlexRIO devices include field programmable gate array (FPGA) modules that can be programmed using the NI LabVIEW FPGA Module, as well as adapter modules that provide high-performance analog and digital I/O. Adapter modules are interchangeable and define the available I/O in the LabVIEW FPGA programming environment.

So, what can NI FlexRIO achieve with high-speed serial boards?

• Onboard FPGA for real-time processing and deterministic control

• Reconfigurable I/O (RIO) architecture

• Complete solution from prototype verification to independent distributed deployment

• 1.2GB/s high-speed fiber optic serial communication from terminal to host

NI system source measure units (SMUs) based on NI SourceAdapt technology have a sensitivity of up to 10fA. Users can customize the SMU response and use SCPI standard command control to achieve flexible four-quadrant operation, multi-channel, high-density, faster and more stable measurements.

Figure 5. The most revolutionary new version of LabVIEW in its 30 years of existence

NI LabVIEW is one of the application software that has become more valuable through the ecosystem by building an automated testing ecosystem with software as the center.

At this PXI TAC, NI showcased the new LabVIEW, the most revolutionary new version of LabVIEW in its 30 years of history. It has the following new features: Get the tools and IP you need, use the latest system design technology, plus a growing hardware and software ecosystem, and coordinate a large number of connected devices in distributed systems to simplify the development of complex systems.

2) PXI integrated solution to meet the test challenges in the IoT field

Data from a research company shows that by 2020, the Internet of Things will bring in at least $30 billion in market profits each year, and there will be 2.5 billion devices connected to the Internet of Things by then, and this trend will continue to grow rapidly.

Figure 6. PXI meets the test challenges in the IoT field

NI PXI hardware platform and LabVIEW development software provide a complete BLE test solution for Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) testing. It supports 1.x, 2.x+EDR, 3.x+HS, 4.2 LE, and 5.0 LE standards, provides LabVIEW/NET/CVI/C application programming interface (API), and supports DTM testing using HCI.

Micropross can provide NFC test solutions for multi-mode antenna interaction. For details, please see the MP500 PT1-NFC on display. It has NFC protocol (ISO 14443 A/B, ISO 15693, MIFARETM, FeliCaTM) read and write simulation performance for smart card testing, and rich C language for custom testing and integration.

NI and HPE have jointly created the Edgeline IoT remote server system that supports high-performance PXI instruments to achieve real-time analysis and control of edge networks. At the same time, in the face of big data in IoT scenarios, NI provides DIAdem software for mining and management of massive data.

3) NB-IoT, 5G, 802.11ax…How to cope with new challenges in RF and wireless testing?

NB-IoT has rapidly become the mainstream communication technology for low-power wide-area Internet of Things (LPWAN). LPWAN is the most eye-catching field in the current development of the global Internet of Things, and can truly achieve low-cost full coverage of a large range of Internet of Things.

At the same time, NI's NB-IoT test toolkit based on modular instruments for rapid and flexible deployment came into being, and the NB-IoT product test solution has been promoted in many places in Taiwan.

802.11ax, which will make Wi-Fi less congested, is also a hot topic recently. The corresponding solution is NI's second-generation vector signal transceiver. Each VST has a 1GHz loss bandwidth. Four VSTs are integrated together to form a 4×4 ax MIMO test system.

In the face of the latest and hottest 5G prototype design, a NI spokesperson said that Massive MIMO, millimeter wave, Multi-RAT (Radio Access Technology), wireless networks, etc. are the key to verifying 5G key technologies.

Here are two case studies to support this:

Through cooperation with Nokia, NI released the world's first millimeter wave prototype system that supports up to 2 GHz bandwidth; through cooperation with Lund University, it realized the 100-antenna Massive MIMO system for the first time.

Figure 7. NI showcases the latest test solutions for NB-IoT, 5G, 802.11ax, etc.

4) NI STS semiconductor test system, specially designed for mass production testing

The open modular architecture of NI STS enables engineers to use the latest PXI instruments, which is not possible with traditional closed-architecture ATE. This is especially important for RF and mixed-signal test, as the latest semiconductor technologies require test coverage that often exceeds what traditional ATE can provide.

NI STS combines TestStand test management software and LabVIEW system design software with a rich set of features for semiconductor production environments, including a customizable operator interface, handler/prober integration, device-centric programming with pin-channel mapping, Standard Test Data Format (STDF) reporting, and integrated multisite support.

Figure 8. NI STS Semiconductor Test System

5) PXI hardware platform with algorithm software can easily handle the full cycle test of automotive products

Smart cars integrate more perception and communication technologies, such as radar, Bluetooth, and wireless communications. The introduction of these advanced technologies will also greatly increase the complexity of the entire automotive system. Based on this series of test challenges, NI provides a series of solutions to deal with them. An NI engineer said in the demonstration: "In the entire system, the NI RF simulator can simulate V2X communication signals. At the same time, combined with NI's millimeter-wave radar front end, we can simulate the target signal of the vehicle-mounted radar. Through GPO image processing and FPGA fault injection, we can easily simulate scenario tests under different weather conditions."

In addition, NI also provides HIL simulators that can support scenario simulations including carmaker/prescan, and software dynamics simulation systems of CarSim/MATLAB, and can simulate peripheral sensors and loads. Based on such a platform, a complete closed-loop simulation test system can be realized from perception to decision-making to execution.

Figure 9. NI HIL test system for smart cars

NI and its partners work together to create a good ecological environment

PXI is an open platform. Over the years, NI has actively worked with partners to better serve more than 35,000 users and has formed a comprehensive service and support ecosystem.

Figure 10. The PXI ecosystem is becoming increasingly complete.

At this conference, NI demonstrated how its partner Booster helped Flextronics test wearable smart bracelets. They used the PXI platform based on a vector signal transceiver, combined with LV and TS software, to complete the testing of the current model of smart bracelets, increasing the speed from 60s/pcs to 45s/2pcs. PXI truly helped customers improve testing efficiency.

NI provides Chang Guang Satellite with a full range of remote sensing and telemetry solutions, as well as services including a ten-year warranty, full life cycle technology updates and management consulting. At the same time, NI signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Chang Guang Satellite to further enhance its support.

Figure 11. Some of the customer cases presented by NI

Here is an economic account for Great Wall Power: PXI platform investment is 350,000 yuan per unit, labor cost is 600,000 yuan per year, and other costs are 100,000 yuan per year. Compared with traditional test solutions, the use of PXI platform has brought Great Wall Power a comprehensive profit of up to 1 million yuan in two years!

Ruckus Wireless is a company that provides WiFi coverage solutions for complex environments. Since using VST, Ruckus has achieved zero complaints about wireless DOA, with amazing results.

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