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LXI Conformance

By Jochen Wolle, Rohde & Schwarz

Before a product is certified as LXI-conformant, it must be tested by a certified third party (an LXI Test House) to ensure that it conforms to the LXI specification. Test engineers are assured that combinations of LXI products will integrate well together, and that there is a consistent user experience between products. This is a key advantage of the LXI Conformance Specifications, and the LXI conformance process is unique among standards organizations.

The LXI Conformance Specifications are designed to ensure that the “interoperability” goal of the LXI Consortium is met to the fullest extent possible, while still allowing vendors to bring devices to market with the minimum of overhead in both time and cost.

Why is certification necessary?
Interoperability. Plain and simple. The LXI Consortium was formed in part to drive assurance that all LXI devices could work seamlessly together, creating an open standard environment and driving a consistent user experience.
Certification allows the usage of the LXI Logo on your device and in your promotional material. Certifying a product as LXI-conformant assures your product is interoperable and participates in an open standard environment. Being part of the LXI Consortium opens the door to more information on conformance, the standard, and it allows you to participate and collaborate with more than 50 of the top Test and Measurement industry leaders.

IVI Web Forum Question and Answer:
How to write/read custom commands?

Answered by Kirk Fertitta, Pacific Mindworks
for the IVI Web Forum

Note: Offering an IVI driver is a requirement for all LXI-conformant instruments, something you will find in the LXI Device Specification 2016, Section 6.1. The IVI Web Forum is hosted by the IVI Foundation.It was created to answer the more practical questions that arise when using the IVI Drivers to program test systems. To see a list of the IVI Drivers, click here. To view this question/answer in the Forum, click here.

Question:

Hello,
what can i do if i want to execute a command which is not included in the class-driver and also not in the specific driver?
Is there a write/read/query-function included in all specific drivers?
Or do i have to create a third handle with viopen to viPrintf my custom scpi-commands?
Thx

Answer:
Great question. The answer is "maybe". The new IVI-2014 Generation standard actually requires there be a standardized "pass-through" (aka "Direct I/O") interface in every IVI driver. Any driver with an *initial* release date on or after Jan 1st, 2015 must comply with IVI-2014. So, while most drivers you find out there were initially released before that date, the requirement of a DirectIO interface was actually just codifying practices that had been in place for years. For instance, Agilent and Keysight drivers almost certainly have a DirectIO interface. Most drivers our company has done for other major vendors include such an interface.

Chroma High Power DC Electronic Load Model 63200A series

Rated power:3kW, 4kW, 5kW, 6kW, 12kW, 18kW, 24kW, Max. 240kW (Parallel)
Voltage range: 150V, 600V, 1200V
Current range: 2,000A max. per unit
CC, CR, CV & CP operation modes
CR+CC, CR+CV, CC+CV complex modes

CHYNG HONG ELECTRONIC Co. Ltd. DSPWr Series Power Supplies
Wide Range Programmable DC Power Supply(CV , CC , CP)
- Wide range output, programmable voltage, current and power.
- 3U height, output voltage from 0~80V up to 0~1500V, output current from 0~30A up to 0~540A.

Good Will Instrument GSP-93xx Spectrum Analyzers
GSP-9300 is a light, compact and high C/P ratio 3GHz spectrum analyzer. The GSP-9300 frequency range stretches from 9kHz to 3GHz and features many functions such as radio frequency and power measurement, 2FSK digital communications analysis, EMC pretest, and active component P1 dB point measurement.

Tektronix TBS2xxx Oscilloscopes
With a 9-inch WVGA display, 20 million point record length and 1 GS/s sample rate, TBS2000 Series Oscilloscopes capture and display significantly more signal to help you evaluate designs faster.