Synthetic Test Equipment Using PXI Based Instrumentation

Traditional test systems are usually static rack-and-stack test systems to meet the specific test applications, it is a trouble for traditional test technologies to provide all test environment capabilities for the feasibility assessment, design, manufacture, and maintenance stages not only to find the faults but to also verify the functional designs at unit-level or system-level. To resolve the problem, the next generation instrumentation and Automatic Test system (ATS) should be interoperable, interchanged, reconfigured and can reduce the total ownership costs. This paper begins with the study of next generation test system (NxTest) and synthetic instrumentation (SI), and then the Synthetic Test Equipment (STE) using PXI based instrumentation to meet the requirement of both emulating and test is presented. In the end, the timing and synchronization of the STE is discussed.