Specifications

6
the type of instrument. This commonality lets you spend less time browsing
through the help files in order to program an instrument, leaving more time to
get your job done.
That was the motivation behind the development of IVI drivers.The IVI
specifications enable drivers with a consistent and high standard of quality,
usability, and completeness. The specifications define an open driver architecture,
a set of instrument classes, and shared software components. Together these
provide consistency and ease of use, as well as the crucial elements needed for
the advanced features IVI drivers support: instrument simulation, automatic range
checking,
state caching, and interchangeability .
The IVI Foundation has created IVI class specifications that define the capabilities
for drivers for th
e following thirteen instrument classes:
Class IVI Driver
Digital multimeter (DMM) IviDmm
Oscilloscope IviScope
Arbitrary waveform/function generator IviFgen
DC power supply
AC power supply
IviDCPwr
IviACPwr
Switch IviSwtch
Power meter IviPwrMeter
Spectrum analyzer IviSpecAn
RF signal generator
Upconverter
Downconverter
Digitizer
Counter/timer
IviRFSigGen
IviUpconverter
IviDownconverter
IviDigitizer
IviCounter
IVI Class Compliant drivers usually also include capability that is not part of the IVI
Class. It is common for instruments that are part of a class to have numerous
functions that are beyond the scope of the class definition. This may be because
the capability is not common to all instruments of the class or because the
instrument offers some control that is more refined than what the class defines.