AXIe Product Development for AdvancedTCA Vendors

By Larry Desjardin, AXIe Consortium

Now that the AXIe (AdvancedTCA Extensions for Instrumentation) specification has been published and the first products have appeared, there is growing interest in developing AXIe products. Both Test Evolution and Agilent Technologies have reported brisk early sales of development environments. AdvancedTCA vendors have an advantage for quick time to market, since AXIe is highly leveraged from the AdvancedTCA specifications. However, identifying the best way forward for developing AXIe products varies with product category. This article gives a quick review of product opportunities and development choices.

Developers must note that AXIe actually consists of two independent specifications: AXIe 1.0 for general purpose instrumentation defines a backplane topology for Zones 1 and 2, and AXIe 3.1 defines a Zone 3 interface and backplane oriented to semiconductor test. AXIe 1.0 systems may exist by themselves (no Zone 3), or have the AXIe 3.1 Zone 3 backplane. AXIe 3.1, as a Zone 3 definition, may co-exist with an AXIe 1.0 Zone 1+2 backplane, or any standard AdvancedTCA Zones 1 and 2 topology.

Products

Processor Boards. Can AdvancedTCA processor boards be used in AXIe systems? Two key items usually determine the answer. AXIe systems rarely support user configurable Zone 3 ingress/egress connectors, so the board must be able to operate without the Zone 3 access. Secondly, most AXIe instruments use PCIe as their primary control/data interface, so PCIe fabric support is almost essential for an AXIe processor board. There are other subtleties, but AdvancedTCA processor boards that meet these two requirements can usually be integrated into AXIe systems. A few more modifications, and they can be fully AXIe compliant.

Chassis. Are existing AdvancedTCA chassis AXIe compatible? No, the backplane must be changed. Either the Zone 1+2 backplane needs to be replaced with an AXIe 1.0 backplane, or an AXIe 3.1 backplane must be inserted in the Zone 3 space. As in the VXI and PXI markets, there is definitely an emerging market for chassis and backplanes with varied sizes, orientations, and numbers of slots. AdvancedTCA vendors could exploit this market opportunity.

Instrument Modules. By definition, AXIe is focused on instrumentation. Though the first announced products are focused on semiconductor test and digital analysis, AXIe products will also include high performance data converters, such as digitizers and waveform generators. Since AXIe uses PCIe as its communication fabric just as PXI and cPCIe do, there can be significant design leverage from these formats to AXIe. The larger board size and power capacity enables greater channel density. Experienced AdvancedTCA designers will find adapting to AXIe straightforward. Think of AXIe 1.0 as just another Zone 1+2 topology, and AXIe 3.1 as a specific Zone 3. To help designers get started, Agilent Technologies offers a development environment for AXIe 1.0 products, and Test Evolution offers one for AXIe 3.1.

AXIe offers incremental market opportunities for the AdvancedTCA industry. It also offers end users the ability to develop their own custom instrumentation, signal conditioning, and data processing where needed. Universities and the scientific community have expressed keen interest in such capabilities. For this reason, the AXIe Consortium is offering a new membership class intended for universities and research institutes.

To learn more about the AXIe specifications, or contact the AXIe Consortium, please visit the website at www.axiestandard.org/.

Larry Desjardin is Chairman of the Board of the AXIe Consortium and General Manager of the Modular Product Organization at Agilent Technologies. You can contact him at larry_desjardin@agilent.com.