First AXIe Products Appear

By Larry Desjardin, AXIe Consortium/Agilent Technologies

Agilent Technologies and Test Evolution (TEv) have recently announced the first AXIe compatible products. Agilent introduced a PCI Express Gen 3 analyzer for use by developers. TEv’s products include a 48 channel digital pin card and 12 channel device power source for semiconductor characterization and production test environments. Both companies also announced chassis, software, and development environments.

Agilent’s products comply with the AXIe 1.0 Base Architecture Specification focused on general purpose test and measurement, whereas TEv’s products are based on the AXIe 3.1 Semiconductor Test Specification. Essentially, the AXIe 1.0 products do not use Zone 3 at all, which allows them to work in a system that has a pre-defined Zone 3, such as AXIe 3.1. Agilent utilizes the timing and synchronization features of the Zones 1 and 2 backplane of AXIe 1.0, whereas TEv relies on the Zone 3 structures for timing and Device Under Test I/O.

Both companies use the PCIe data fabric of ATCA instead of the LAN base fabric. PCIe provides a low latency memory mapped architecture for high throughput applications. They also both use an external Cable PCIe interface on their system module that allows communication and control to and from an external controller. Almost any external controller with a Cable PCIe interface card can control the AXIe system. The controllers may be rack mounted, desktops, or even laptops, as the PCIe fabric within the AXIe chassis appears as an extension to the controller’s own memory space.

The high scalability of AXIe is reflected in the breadth of chassis announced, ranging from 2 slots horizontal to 14 slots vertical. The smaller sizes are well-suited to bench use or development applications, whereas the larger sizes are for large test systems found mainly in manufacturing. 

Further details may be found on the Products section of the AXIe Consortium web-site at www.axiestandard.org/products.html.

Of particular interest to the AdvancedTCA community are development environments offered by both companies. The close relationship between the AdvancedTCA and AXIe specifications offers market opportunities for AdvancedTCA vendors. Chassis, backplane, and power supply vendors may offer AXIe compliant versions of their products with little or no modification. The development kits offered by Agilent and TEv are aimed at module designers working on AXIe products and end users creating custom boards for their systems.

In summary, the first AXIe products illustrate the advantages of the specification. It offers a highly scalable architecture for a wide range of test and measurement applications in many industries. It provides a great deal of compatibility with AdvancedTCA and access to much of its extensive COTS ecosystem. 

Larry Desjardin is Chairman of the AXIe Consortium Board of Directors and also General Manager, Modular Product Operation (MPO) at Agilent Technologies. You can reach him at larry_desjardin@agilent.com.