Expectations for the PXI market over the next five-plus years are high, with estimates of $1.75 billion in revenue by 2020. PXI will have a particularly strong impact on the test and measurement industry, according to Frost & Sullivan’s report “PXI Market to Change the Face of the Test and Measurement Industry.” A PC-based platform used in measurement and automation systems, PXI combines PCI electrical-bus features with CompactPCI, adding specialized synchronization buses and key software features.
More OEMs have adopted PCI extensions for instrumentation (now know more commonly as PXI), simply because they reduce the time to market and overall costs due to measurement speed, small footprint, low power consumption, and flexibility. The PXI market’s lofty multi-billion-dollar forecast, up from the $563.3 million earned in 2013, will be driven by increased activity around radio-frequency (RF) along with greater demand from the communications and semiconductors sectors.
PXI solutions are being used to satisfy new test requirements for RF wireless technologies adopted by aerospace and defense programs, as well as the industrial and consumer electronics industries. The semiconductor automatic-test-equipment (ATE) market offers another avenue for PXI.
PXI’s transition has been slowed by test engineers’ unwillingness to change from trusted traditional box instruments. However, the report indicated a new generation of more-computer-savvy test engineers may turn that tide. Its integration can prove challenging, though, as they sometimes lack the tools and services to quickly assemble systems. PXI participants, however, are offering subsystems, hardware/software bundles, and box solutions that use the extensions to help facilitate.
In addition, 5G and its influence on the Internet of Things (IoT) will also benefit PXI, mainly due to include integration of the wireless technology in various industrial and consumer electronics.