What is VXI/VME?

NI offers the broadest range of VXI control solutions available today. Our VXI controllers take advantage of off-the-shelf PC technologies wherever possible to deliver the benefits of this burgeoning industry to you in the form of state-of-the-art VXI control solutions that consistently set new standards for price, performance, and ease of use. Software is also the key to your VXI development success and our comprehensive software offering -- from the NI-VXI/NI-VISA I/O software to our LabVIEW and Measurement Studio application development tools. It is the combination of hardware and software that sets our VXI controllers apart.

Merging VXI and PC Technologies
All our VXI controllers take advantage of the latest PC technologies such as PCI, Intel microprocessors, and the new IEEE 1394 serial bus technology. You can choose from our complete line of VXI control options and automatically harness the power of these new technologies while maintaining the lowest cost.

National Instruments and VXIplug&play
Established in 1993, the VXIplug&play Systems Alliance sought to elevate the level of standardization above and beyond the baseline VXI specifications to make VXI systems easier to build and use. The VXI Consortium made VXI systems open at the hardware level -- you can use modules from different vendors in the same mainframe without electrical or mechanical conflict.

As a founding member of the alliance, National Instruments has worked side by side with the alliance members to define standards that make VXI systems open at the system level. Today, the VXIplug&play standards are described in a complete set of specifications published by the alliance with hundreds of VXIplug&play products available.

Embedded VXI Controllers
Embedded VXI controllers are special VXI computers that are installed directly in the VXI mainframe. This control option offers the smallest possible physical size for a VXI system. More importantly, it provides a direct connection, so your computer can take full advantage of high-performance VXI backplane capabilities.

GPIB Control of VXI
You can also control a VXI system using a GPIB-equipped computer. In this configuration, one or more VXI mainframes are linked to an external computer via standard GPIB cables. The computer talks across the GPIB to a GPIB-VXI/C interface module installed in the leftmost slot of the mainframe, and the GPIB-VXI/C transparently translates GPIB protocols to and from VXI protocols. The computer controls the VXI instruments as familiar GPIB instruments.

VXI Software
All of our VXI controllers are compatible with the scores of software packages and tools available for general-market computers. Our NI-VXI/NI-VISA, which is shipped with all of our controllers, boasts a rich application programming interface (API) that complies with all of the latest VXIplug&play standards. Our LabVIEW and Measurement Studio application development environments, designed for instrument control, feature graphical programming paradigms to accelerate your development. With these packages, you can choose from hundreds of industry-standard instrument drivers available from more than sixty vendors.