Instrumentation: More bang for the buck: Test gear exploits complex integrated circuits to do more, faster

As a new year begins, the increasing use of large-scale integrated circuits (LSIs) by measurement-instrument manufacturers continues to increase instrument dollar value. At one end of the price scale, very-low-priced general-purpose instruments are proliferating and finding new applications in consumer and industrial markets, as a result of the availability of low-cost LSI chips. At the other end of the scale, sophisticated, higher-priced instruments — logic and microprocessor analyzers and microwave frequency counters and sources in the tens-of-gigahertz range — are being created to tackle complex circuit-design problems. And in between, traditional instruments such as digital multimeters are being upgraded by improving their performance (e.g., faster reading rates) and by adding capabilities, including the measurement of temperature, capacitance, and in-circuit semiconductor junction resistance.