A soon-to-be-released survey of engineers responsible for test and measurement will report that new communications protocols such as Ethernet—long touted as a likely successor to IEEE-488 and serial interfaces—are finally seeing widespread adoption. In addition, the open-source Linux operating system, considered by many to be a niche player in a Microsoft-dominated world, is winning significant acceptance for measurement applications.
The study, conducted by Ohio-based Keithley Instruments, is now in its sixth year. The company's Measurement Trends survey, not yet released in its final form, reviews industry measurement performance and the future requirements that engineers want. Here's a preview of what to expect when the report goes public.
The Rally Continues
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First, the industry's march toward communication protocols such as Ethernet, Universal Serial Bus (USB), and FireWire continues. Based on what engineers use to capture data from instruments today, and what they plan to use in 12 months, it looks like serial-port and GPIB use will decline, and decline dramatically.
On the other hand, Ethernet is poised to increase from today's 29% to 39% in the near future. Likewise, USB will grow from today's 23% to 37% in the future, and FireWire will expand from 11% today to 21% as a future protocol of choice.
A Perennial Favorite
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Ethernet's popularity was evident in several questions throughout Keithley's study. It shows that more than one in five engineers (or 21%) currently use Ethernet for either the majority or a portion of their measurements; another 34% say they're considering it.
Even wireless Ethernet is showing signs of acceptance in the market, with 8% percent of users currently using wireless Ethernet for measurements.
The report also reflects the trends expected for the use of popular computer backplanes for things such as plug-in data-acquisition boards. Naturally, the future use of the old ISA and even PCI bus boards showed expected declines, but the use of VXI and PXI backplanes is forecast to rise.
So what happened to PCMCIA's promise as a rapidly growing test platform? According to Keithley Business Manager Mark Cejer, there's not much new development for PCMCIA. Planned use of PCMCIA PC Cards in the past 12 months has remained flat compared to today's use levels.
Whither or Wither PC Cards?
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The PC Card form factor presents limitations to test and measurement, says Cejer. "With a laptop computer running roughly twice the price of a desktop," he notes, "few people moved to them for measurement tasks—unless portability was a true requirement. That limits the number of applications where a PCMCIA card could be used."
"Early forecasts that PCMCIA would migrate to the desktop PC environment as well as laptops never materialized due to the popularity of the USB standard that has emerged."
Partners: Resolution and Speed
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Regardless of PCMCIA's lack of luster, future requirements for resolution and high-speed measurements grew dramatically. In Keithley's study of two years ago, for example, 3% percent of engineers said they needed to use 26-bit to 28-bit measurements (7½- to 8½-digit instruments). Today, 19% require that level of performance.
In terms of speed in the year 2000 survey, 12% of respondents reported that they required at least 10,000 readings/s. Now that figure stands at 19%.
Interestingly, those who required the most accurate readings, at 0.1% of full scale or better, remained statistically constant at 32% of respondents in 2000 to today's 30%.
Operating-System Hegemony
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In terms of computer operating systems (OSs), this year's survey for the first time asked whether engineers were currently using, or planned to use, Linux. About 7% reported they currently use Linux today for measurements, while 14% plan to move to Linux-based systems in the next 12 months.
Microsoft's Windows NT maintained its position as the dominant OS, with 57% current use. Windows XP didn't appear to be making significant inroads, with only 12% using it.
Nor has Unix gained much in acceptance, with just 14% current use. The venerable MS-DOS continues to be used by a surprising 31% of respondents. Mac enthusiasts comprised 7% percent of the users.
So it looks like Microsoft products continue as the software applications of choice for measurement. Excel remained at the top of the list of favorites, with 44% of respondents reporting that they use it "most often" for measurement. That was followed by VisualBASIC at 34%. Finally, National Instruments' LabView tools garnered 35% of the responses, followed by the C and C++ programming languages.
