Selecting your optimum LXI feature set.(LXI Connexion)

More than a year ago, a few suppliers of LXI instruments were starting with LXI Class C to develop enhanced instruments. (1) Class C makes up the core LXI features on which Class B and A instruments are built. (2) Now the LXI Consortium has formalized such expanded feature sets in Version 1.3 of the specification, which recently was approved.

Integrating Additional Features to a Class C Instrument

Why is it desirable to add features to a Class C LXI instrument in this way? Here's the situation: Suppose a supplier of a Class C instrument believes that its customers would benefit greatly from more but not all features that fall under the other classes. The capability to add selected functions is a boon to both manufacturers and users.

Users don't have to pay for features they don't necessarily need. This aspect will be especially important for instruments at the lower end of the market such as portable or other low-cost units that use microcontrollers with limited resources to save cost or power consumption. Users also can benefit from a broader selection of instrument products with added features that can be brought to market sooner.

Manufacturers can use such a partial implementation of Class A or B as a steppingstone to a higher class instrument without holding back on the instrument's market launch. Designing a " Class C instrument isn't as major an undertaking as developing a Class B or Class A instrument, especially now that so many instruments already have Ethernet ports.

However, and this is especially true for companies new to the LXI market, it can take significant time to develop a full Class A or B instrument and go through the conformance testing, if a manufacturer can select only certain features, it can get its products to market faster and at a lower cost. For example, a user may find the LXI LAN messaging feature of Class A and Class B is useful, but the addition of IEEE 1588 and the triggering API is less useful and creates trade-offs elsewhere. …

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