Overview

The VXI Modular Instrumentation Platform (VMIP™) is the most popular modular instrumentation platform on VXIbus, and has been in use since 1994. The VMIP™, designed for high-performance instrumentation, provides the user with access to all of the features/benefits of the VXIbus, but in a modular fashion. Up to three VMIP™ instruments can be mounted in a single C-size VXIbus card, and can be mixed and matched for greater flexibility. The form factor for the VMIP™ also provides the real estate necessary to develop high-performance instruments such as precision system multimeters or arbitrary waveform generators.

The VM7000 is a general-purpose prototyping card designed for the VMIP™. It provides the user with complete direct register access to the board, eliminating the need to develop the VXI interface logic and allowing concentration on the custom product design. Since the VM7000 is part of the VMIP™ family, up to three separate custom products can be designed on a single C-size VXIbus card, or combined with other VMIP™ modules to provide a multi-purpose instrument. Each one of these instruments has its own unique logical address (ULA), and can have its own VXIplug&play driver.

All seven-supply lines available on the VXIbus are brought out to the internal VMIP™ bus connectors for use by the VM7000. This allows virtually any type of instrument to be designed for the VXIbus, and does not limit the user to just the +5V and ±12 V supply lines. The VM7000 also provides 16 device-dependent registers that are located in the upper 32 bytes of the VXI instrument’s logical address space. To develop simple functions controlled by static TTL I/O without having to understand the device-dependent registers, the VM7000 provides 32-bit digital I/O on board, configurable as input or output in groups of 8 bits.