An open system to interface IEEE-488 measurement devices designed in a microelectronics environment

The high production level in microelectronics, leads to the need of using automated data acquisition and data analysis methods. Since often highly specialized measurement devices are used, a method is presented in this report, to build a high-level interface between the user and the measurement devices. This report proposes to use the capabilities of modern computer systems to enable parallel and remote access to measuring devices via a networked host without having to use a dedicated unit to perform this task. An approach is described on the basis of typical PC-compatible computer running the Linux OS and "Open Implementation" software.