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Engineers Moving Toward Ethernet, Linux and High Resolution, Says New Survey
October 4, 2002 |Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
Cleveland -- A survey of engineers responsible for electronics measurement reports that new communications protocols such as Ethernet, long touted as a likely successor to the widely used GPIB and serial interfaces, are finally seeing widespread adoption.
In addition, the operating system Linux, a niche player in a Microsoft-dominated world, is also seeing acceptance for measurement applications. The study, conducted by Keithley Instruments, is its sixth survey of Measurement Trends, a review of measurement performance and future requirements based on the responses of engineers throughout the industry.
This year's survey results were compiled from 265 engineers (11 percent response rate) who responded to a mailed, anonymous questionnaire administered in April through May 2002. The survey was sent to engineers who are involved in electronics test and measurement applications across a wide spectrum of industries. While a full report on the study results is available from the company, there are several key findings:
- The industry's march toward new communication protocols such as Ethernet, USB and even Firewire continues, according to survey respondents. When asked what they used for capturing measurement data from instruments today, and what they plan to use in 12 months, serial port and GPIB users declined dramatically, while Ethernet users increased from today's 29 percent to 39 percent in the future; USB grew from today's 23 percent to 37 percent in the future; and Firewire grew from 11 percent today to 21 percent as their future protocol of choice.
- In fact, Ethernet's popularity was seen in several questions throughout the study. Currently, more than one in five engineers (21 percent) use Ethernet for either a majority or a portion of their measurements; another 34 percent say they're considering it. Even wireless Ethernet is showing signs of acceptance in the market, with eight percent currently using wireless Ethernet for measurements.
- Expected trends continued as well for use of computer backplanes for data acquisition boards. Future use of PCI and ISA boards showed expected declines, while use of VXI and PXI backplanes were forecast to rise. Planned usage of PCMCIA in 12 months remained flat compared to today's usage levels.
- Future requirements for high-resolution and high speed measurements grew dramatically. In Keithley's study of two years ago, three percent of engineers said they currently use 26-28 bit measurements (7 1/2 - 8 1/2 digit); today, 19 percent use that high level of performance.
- In terms of high speed measurements, 12 percent of respondents currently required at least 10,000 readings/sec in 2000's survey. That figure today stands at 19 percent.
- Interestingly, those who required the most accurate readings, at 0.1 percent of full scale or better, remained statistically constant, at 32 percent of respondents in 2000 to today's 30 percent.
For more information, visit www.keithley.com/whatsnew.