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Facing legacy issues in PXI systems.

Article Excerpt
By Richard A. Quinnell, Contributing Editor

In the 10 years since its introduction, PXI has seen its share of technical changes, including rising performance specifications for modules and the evolution of the PC-oriented hardware and software at PXI's core. Applications have also changed, with many PXI systems becoming embedded parts of larger test and measurement systems. The resulting combination of long-term fixed installations and changing technology has raised a specter of legacy issues in PXI designs that test engineers will need to exorcise.

It's not a particularly frightening specter. Maintaining compatibility has been a key goal of the PXISA (PXI Systems Alliance) as it has handled technical evolution throughout its history. Even major changes such as a move from the parallel bus of PXI to the serial bus of PXIe (PXI Express) have provided for the reuse of existing system components.

For the move to PXIe, the PXISA defined a hybrid system slot that would accept cards of either bus type (Figure 1). This hybrid slot allows developers to populate a system with older cards and then replace them with PXIe upgrades as needed without altering system configuration. Even software could remain unaffected; with PXIe, the bus change is transparent to the OS (operating system) and applications layers of software.

Despite these efforts, legacy issues are beginning to arise in PXI systems. In part, these issues stem from an increasing use of...

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