How to future-proof your ATS using LAN-based synthetic instruments

With the current trend to drive down the total cost of ownership of automatic test systems (ATS), industry-standard open architectures have been seen as a way of driving down the cost of test (for both design and manufacturing) and of reducing the size of ATS platforms (by eliminating redundant hardware and software). Since these open architectures have been based on rapidly changing commercial computer standards, this large investment in hardware is quickly becoming a support problem-the very problem it was supposed to fix. Additionally, these architectures have been optimized for digital or low frequency analog signals, making it a technical challenge to implement high performance microwave testing.