The Future of GPIB
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Many instrument control bus technologies – with varying bus speeds, latency, connectors, cabling, and prices – have come and gone over the years. GPIB, however, continues as a dominant instrument control bus in the industry today. In the first quarter of 2008, more than 80 percent of new instruments publicly announced by leading test and measurement companies incorporated a GPIB interface. “It just works,” is the top response from engineers when asked why they use GPIB for instrument control. In the engineering world of unknowns, it is reassuring to know you can count on your GPIB-based systems to function properly.
GPIB continues to be a reliable option for instrument control.
National Instruments began developing GPIB products in 1976, leading to the introduction of the ANSI/IEEE 488 standard so engineers and scientists could control their instruments from desktop PCs regardless of vendor. Since these first development stages, NI has actively advanced the GPIB standard and GPIB technologies by gathering feedback from users and instrument vendors. These collaborative efforts have helped GPIB become a proven, easy-to-use control interface with the following benefits:
- Thousands of GPIB instruments
- Software compatibility with other instrument interfaces (enabled by NI-VISA and SCPI)
- Proven ease of use and familiarity
- Low-latency bus performance (30 μs)
- Good bandwidth performance (up to 1.8 MB/s using IEEE 488 and up to 8 MB/s using HS488)
- Rugged cables and connectors
- Long-distance remote control through fiber-optic and Ethernet extenders
Moving forward, NI remains dedicated to GPIB and instrument control. During the past five years, many GPIB products have been updated to include new features, reduced physical size, and enhanced capabilities. Some of these new GPIB products and research areas include the following:
- Windows Vista 32-bit and 64-bit support
- Intel-based Mac support
- Mac OS X support
- SPARC Solaris 9 and 10 support
- PCI Express GPIB controller
- Hi-Speed USB-to-GPIB controller
- RoHS-compliant controllers, cables, and integrated circuits
The success of GPIB and its continued use are tied to the ubiquitous software and instrument driver availability. A team of NI software engineers develops new instrument drivers for instruments released by hundreds of different vendors. Today, the NI Instrument Driver Network offers more than 6,100 instrument drivers, and nearly 100 new drivers have been added in the past three months.
In summary, GPIB remains a dominant industry standard for general purpose instrument control and will continue meeting most engineers’ measurement and automation needs for many years to come. National Instruments is continuing to invest in this technology beyond the next decade, while maintaining backward compatibility, to provide the information and products you need as instrument control options evolve.
Watch a webcast that compares GPIB to other instrument control options.
Quickly Find and Download Your Instrument Drivers
The NI Instrument Driver Network (ni.com/idnet), the industry’s largest source for instrument drivers for more than 14 years, continues to expand and has recently grown to include more than 6,100 drivers from more than 275 vendors. Use the Instrument Driver Network to find consistent, high-level interfaces for your instruments whether you use GPIB, Ethernet/LAN, LXI, USB, or serial I/O.
Download the latest instrument drivers and tools.
This article first appeared in the Q3 2008 issue of Instrumentation Newsletter.
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