IVI Foundation Meeting Summaries · IVI Foundation Meeting Minutes 7 Oct. 2011 #65 - [IviDigitizer] The type of source parameter is defined as "SampleClockSource" in IVI- 4.15_IviDigitizer_2011-10-14.doc

IVI Foundation Meeting Minutes 1 Oct. 2011

IVI Foundation

Meeting Summaries Oct. 10-12, 2012

Boston, MA - MathWorks

Table of Contents

1. MEETING ATTENDEES .................................................................................................................................. 2

2. IVI FILE FORMATS WORKING GROUP: .................................................................................................... 4

3. IVI.NET WORKING GROUP MEETING ....................................................................................................... 5

4. IVI WINDOWS 8 WORKING GROUP MEETING NOTES (10/11/2012) .................................................... 9

5. IVI QUALITY/DOD GROUP OCTOBER 10/11 ............................................................................................ 11

6. TECHNICAL COMMITTEE .......................................................................................................................... 20


1. Meeting Attendees

Bellin Jon National Instruments [email protected]

Cherian Vinod MathWorks [email protected]

Desai Ankit MathWorks [email protected]

Fertitta Kirk Pacific MindWorks [email protected]

Gorringe Chris EADS [email protected]

Harvey John Agilent [email protected]

Helsel Bob Bode Enterprises, LLC [email protected]

Jadric Vesna National Instruments [email protected]

Karulkar Shruti MathWorks [email protected]

Khair Ishrak MathWorks [email protected]

Kruger Adri National Instruments [email protected]

Lopes Teresa Teradyne [email protected]

Mondrik Dan National Instruments [email protected]

Mueller Joe Agilent Technologies [email protected]

Narasimhamurthy Adarsh MathWorks [email protected]

Ostheimer Larry Agilent [email protected]

Purser Rob MathWorks [email protected]

Rajagopalan Shreenath MathWorks [email protected]

Savio Dan Agilent

Schink Steve Agilent [email protected]

Wetjen Eric MathWorks [email protected]

Wolle Jochen Rohde & Schwarz [email protected]

`

mailto:[email protected]












`


2. IVI file formats working group:

- NI is interested in reviewing a standard format to ensure that there is the

possibility of interoperability with an IVI standard file format. At this time

reviewing a draft spec is more aligned with NI’s resource availability.

- Agilent has a need for a common file format but is looking at a shorter time

frame and would be open to using an IVI standard format if the same can

be accomplished in the same timeframe that HiSLIP was implemented by

IVI (i.e., ~ 9-12 months)

- Rohde & Schwarz has similar views as above on common file format for IVI

- A consensus was that for this to be useful, we will need to go from first

meeting to draft spec in ~6 months or so. Getting a draft spec by the

October IVI meeting is key.

- File format discussion

o Updated the draft requirement spec based on discussion

o Updated the open issues document based on discussion

o Question: Does HDF5 really provide enough control over the bytes on

the disk? Is bytes on the disk really a requirement for the IVI standard

file format? Users care about bytes on the disk only in so much that

they would want to be able to read the data back (longevity of

method to retrieve data) but really care more about the being able to

retrieve data than the data on the disk.

- NI shared a spec of their implementation of the HDF5 based data format

they use

o Question: Need for hard link/soft links in the data format

o Question: is there a need for implicit definitions of axis information?

o Question: How would/should the IVI standard file format allow for

storage of different types of information (perhaps post processed

from the raw data) in the dataset (IQ constellation? Display

persistence? Smith chart)


`

3. IVI.NET Working Group Meeting

General Meeting Info:

Date of Meeting: October 10, 2012

Location: Boston, MA

Chairperson: Joe Mueller

Minutes Prepared By: John Harvey

Meeting Attendees:

Jon Bellin National Instruments [email protected]

Dan Mondrik National Instruments [email protected]

David Rohacek (Phone) National Instruments [email protected]

Teresa Lopes Teradyne [email protected]

Jürgen Engelbrecht (Phone) Rohde & Schwarz juergen.engelbrecht

@rohde-schwarz.com

Joe Mueller Agilent Technologies [email protected]

John Harvey Agilent Technologies [email protected]

Pete Stone (Phone) Agilent Technologies [email protected]

Kirk Fertitta Pacific MindWorks [email protected]

Rob Purser MathWorks [email protected]

Vinod Cherion MathWorks [email protected]

Ankit Desai MathWorks [email protected]

Shruti Karulkar MathWorks [email protected]

Adarsh Narasimhamurthy MathWorks adarsh.narasimhamurthy

@mathworks.com

Makoto Kondo Kikusui [email protected]

Bob Helsel IVI Foundation [email protected]

Agenda:

08:30 – 09:30 IVI.NET Topics

Review Action Items

Review pending work items

Review defects

Review Scope Waveform Issue

Schedule for new shared components.

Old Action Items:


Date Added Description Assigned To / Updates Target Date

General

2012-06-17 Schedule IVI.NET WG meetings as needed

between now and the October IVI meeting. Next

meeting is July 10. John will inquire via email if

the meeting time can moved to an earlier time, per

a request from Jochen.

John Harvey DONE

2012-07-10 Create IVI.NET editorial changes for several specs

to address defects in the defect data base.

John Harvey DONE

2012-08-20 Review and approved editorial changes. John Harvey DONE

Pending Work Items

Pending work items are:

Monitor driver prototyping and development so that we can unconditionally release additional instrument

class assemblies as needed.

Add .NET API to the ACPwr spec.

Review test programs for testing future policy files.

John asked if there were any compelling reasons to initiate work on any of these before the February, 2013 IVI

meeting. These items will all be tabled until the February meeting, as there is no expressed intention of working on

them before then.

Kirk will touch bases with Ametek to see if they have an interest in the .NET API for the ACPwr spec.

Defect Review

The following defects were added to the defect database after the last set of editorial changes was ready for review:

#59 - [IviSwtch] The parameter table in section 4.2.8 of IVI-4.6 (IviSwitch) includes an "index"

parameter. However, no such parameter exists.

Editorial change to remove the index parameter from the table. #60 - [IviSwtch] The Description field of section 4.2.9 of IVI-4.6 describes a 1-based index.

However, this applies only to COM and not to .NET. This caused some confusion in interpreting the

spec.

Editorial change to correctly describe that the COM index is one-based and the index does not apply to .NET.

#61 - [IviCounter] The method Measurement.IsMeasurementComplete() which is defined in IVI-

4.12_Counter_2011-08-25.doc (page 94) is implemented as a property in Ivi.Counter assembly

(ver 1.0.1.0).

It should be a method named GetMeasurementComplete()

Check other specs to see if they need to be changed – we know that the Power Meter spec will need to be changed.

#62 - [IviCounter] The MeasurementStatus.Unknown defined in IVI-4.12_Counter_2011-08-25.doc (page 95)

is implemented as MeasurementStatus.IUnknown in assembly.

The assembly is clearly wrong and needs to be changed. #63 - [IviCounter] The parameter resolution is defined as PrecisionTimeSpan type but implemented

as “double” in assembly.

The assembly is wrong and needs to be changed. #64 - [IviDigitizer] The ReferenceOscillatorSource type missed two item PXIClk10 and PXIeClk100

according to the definition in IVI-4.15_IviDigitizer_2011-10-14.doc (page 187-188).

Kirk doesn’t want PXI uppercase – We will change the spec to PxiClk10 and PxiExpressClk100.


#65 - [IviDigitizer] The type of source parameter is defined as "SampleClockSource" in IVI-

4.15_IviDigitizer_2011-10-14.doc (page 199), but it is actually implemented as

"ReferenceOscillatorSource" in assembly.

I assume that the assembly should be changed – verify with Yves? #66 - [IviDigitizer] This might be an editorial issue of spec, where "WindowConditionEnum" should

be "WindowCondition" in IVI-4.15_IviDigitizer_2011-10-14.doc (page 295).

Editorial change to the spec to change WindowConditionEnum to WindowCondition. #67 – [IviDigitizer] ChannelNotEnabledException, ArmNotSoftwareExeption and

IncompatibleFetchException are listed in spec but not found in assembly

I assume that these should be added to the assembly – verify with Yves? Verify all IviCounter changes with Don/Joe

Verify all IviDigitizer changes with Yves Maumary & Evan Cone.

John will write up the changes in detail and verify with spec owners, then call an IVI.NET WG meeting to finalize

and prep for a review.

Waveform Issue.

There is an issue with the waveform interface, described in the Scope Waveform Problem.pptx presentation.

Propose API changes (Joe/Kirk) by Oct. 30.

o Initial proposal is to make the start and end times and the span PrecisionTimeSpan, and the trigger time PrecisionDateTime.

o This does not impose any new requirements on the precision time types.

Make the spec changes (John)

Change the IWaveform and ISpectrum definitions in the Ivi.Driver assembly (John)

Change the Waveform class implementation (Rob/Vinod)

Schedule for New Shared Components.

Should include both IWaveform and Waveform changes and changes related to fixing defects.

Changes:

Defect related changes – John

IWaveform/ISpectrum changes – WG

New installer – NI Schedule TBD in WG phone meetings. Next WG meeting is October 30, 10am Mountain time.

PIA Installation.

Kirk noted that the older instrument classes have three PIAs installed (AnyCPU, x86, and AMD64) while the newer

ones have only two (x86 and AMD64). We don’t know why and would like to pursue with Jonathan. David will

ask Jonathan if he remembers why.

New Action Items:

Date Added Description Assigned To / Updates Target Date

General

2012-10-10 Touch bases with Ametek to see if they have an

interest in the .NET API for the ACPwr spec.

Kirk 2012-11-01

2012-10-10 Write up the defect fix changes in detail, including John 2012-10-30


change document, and verify with spec owners.

2012-10-10 Propose IWaveform/ISpectrum API changes. Joe/Kirk 2012-10-30

2012-10-10 Schedule meeting on Oct. 30 to discuss and

approve the proposed IWaveform and ISpectrum

API changes, and to finalize defect fix changes and

prepare for a review.

John 2012-10-30

DONE

2012-10-10 Create change document for

IWaveform/ISpectrum API changes.

John 2012-12-01

2012-10-10 Change assemblies to reflect

IWaveform/ISpectrum API changes.

John 2012-12-01

2012-10-10 Change the Waveform and Spectrum class

implementations.

Rob 2012-12-01

2012-10-10 Create new IVI.NET Shared Components installer David ??

2012-10-10 Review and Approve specification changes John ??

2012-10-10 Review and Approve new shared components John ??


4. IVI Windows 8 Working Group Meeting Notes (10/11/2012)

Attendees:

Name Company Email

Alan Hume Pickering Interfaces [email protected]

Jochen Wolle Rohde Schwarz [email protected]

X John Harvey Agilent [email protected]

Kirk Fertitta Pacific MindWorks [email protected]

Pankaj Adhikari National Instruments [email protected]

Bob Twete Tektronix [email protected]

Rob Purser MathWorks [email protected]

X Teresa Lopez Teradyne [email protected]

X Vesna Jadric National Instruments [email protected]

X Vinod Cherian MathWorks [email protected]

Yuji Kobayashi VTI Instruments [email protected]

X Jon Bellin National Instruments [email protected]

Agenda:

1) Discussion on proposed topics to TC

2) Review proposed changes to rest of IVI specs

3) Update action items

Notes:

At the meeting, the group discussed the four major items listed below. Resolution was arrived at for all items. The

proposal was presented to the IVI Technical Committee who voted for all changes to specs to be marked minor

changes and processed as a batch.

Discussion points

- Start screen discussion

o IVI 3.17 wording proposal from John H. – discussed and modified.














- Bitness discussion

o IVI 5.0 wording proposal from Vinod C. – discussed and modified.

- Supported OS discussion

o Question on removing OS no longer supported by Microsoft – group voted to list the old OS.

Pacific Mindworks’ mentioned that they have virtual machines that are used to test on

certain of the listed platforms.

- Spec changes classification discussion

o Do we need to be marking changes as editorial, minor or major? – minor changes

Next Steps:

Vinod to create final word doc with change tracking info and upload all


5. IVI Quality/DoD Group October 10/11

Attendees

Attendees Face-Face

October 10, 2012

Chris Gorringe X

Vesna Jadric X

Jon Bellin X

Joe Mueller X

Ion Neag

Steve Schink X

Jochen Wolle X

John Harvey X

Kirk Fertitta X

Vinod Cherian X

Yves Maumary

John Ryland

Dave Soderholm

Lopes Teresa X

Juergen Engelbrecht

Yuji Kobayashi

Larry Ostheimer (Wednesday)

Dan Mondrik (Thursday)

Adri Kruger X

Bob Helsel X

Adarsh

Narasimhamurthy

X

Ishrak Khair X

Agenda

1. Versioning & Compliance (see slides) a. May impact “Designating new drivers” topic

Versioning & Compliance.ppt

Discussion:

Customers seem interested in both the class specification and the architecture specifications.

Capturing tables of what a driver complies with becomes very complex.

There is an additional complication because of the time-lag between completing a class specification and getting a version of shared components out.

Some of the issue is because the customers don’t understand the details of what compliance really involves.


Could add a section to the IVI website that says for each spec and driver architecture combination, what changes are relevant.

Would like to allow the vendor to explain changes and details about a particular driver.

Want to avoid a pure binary answer because that doesn’t really answer the customer question, however, a single customer still may be insisting on a simple answer.

If we create tables, there are lots of potentials approaches to formatting the data.

Need to have a way to capture the state of the specs and state of the shared components.

Could create a tool to verify the compliance of drivers (difficult).

2. Review status – especially plan for closure a. How to get closure on Web Forum and Education plan

3. Designating new drivers a. What do we need to do regarding a Grandfather clause for this work? How does this

imapct voting on the resolution? Probably not literally a grandfather clause, but what do we do?

4. IVI-COM/NET boilerplate (see notes from John) a. Copyright & Trademark citation topics

5. Required Testing (see notes from John) a. Note – need to resolve how we handle the models supported. Proposal is to limit

required testing across models.

THURSDAY

6. Establish next steps with compliance citation questions 7. How we handle the testing requirement and reporting of the testing, what spec to put the

requirements in, etc. 8. Required IO Operations (Discuss Thursday – details from John) 9. Web Forum

IVI Web Forum Policy.docx

10. Education plan Roles for meeting this afternoon. Plan for debrief session.

11. Ongoing meetings and next steps.

Status Summary

Component Status Actions and comment Documents

How to designate new drivers Notes below –

tentative

agreement to

Key decisions at face-face:

- Need to emphasize connection


create an IVI

Generation.

to existing IVI drivers.

- Changes to specs are not

honerous and all new drivers

should comply. Therefore no

new classification is being

created.

- Differences to a customer are

substantive and some

designation is necessary.

Resolution of this item needs to include if

we create a graphical badge.

Documentation Boilerplate for IVI-

COM and IVI .NET

Done with

Review Driver Intro

2012-10-04.docxContains both C and

COM and .NET versions, version reviewed

at meeting. One action embedded in text

(remove trademarks).

Updated and agreed to during meeting.

NA

Documentation Boilerplate for IVI-C Done with

review

Some minor changes from September

meetings. (all captured in the file above).

Require drivers document firmware

revisions tested

Done with

Review IVI 3.1 Proposed

Change - Firmware Revision.docx

Require drivers provide buildable

source code

Done with

review IVI 3.1 Proposed

Change - Buildable Source Code.docx

Required use of configuration

functions and attributes

Done with

review

IVI-3 4_APIStyleGuide_Draft_2012-04-23 - Bellin edits.doc

Required list of SCPI commands Done with

review IVI 3.1 Proposed

Change - SCPI Commands Documentation.docx

Required IO Operations Updated in

meeting, ready

Document is not in

final form as a


for review

DoD Direct IO Change Document 2021-10-11.docx

change document.

Still working on

convergence.

Establish basic testing requirements Updated/created,

ready to be

formalized and

incorporated in

spec.

DoD Testing Proposal.doc

Education plan NA Draft presentation this week.

Web Forum Will be

discussed further

Friday. (notes

below)

Proposal out

Thoughts on ratification process:

- Taken as a whole this is a major change. (e.g., DirectIO). - Should be explicit about what spec’s need to increment in major/minor/editorial in the eventual

motion to the TC. And what the final numbers will be. (ACTION: Vesna will pull together a table of all of the spec changes, the current spec number and what the new spec number will be).

- We will follow the process for a major change, but handle all of this as one aggregated change. - We shall have a motion in the TC this week to authorize this. This will require a 2/3 vote

because it represents a change in the specifications. (ACTION: Joe compose and send to Vesna) - Need to pull the table above into a single “resolution” for the Technical committee to make the

necessary changes in one fell swoop. Use this document to drive convergence in this committee in upcomging weeks so we can call final vote. (Once we have a solid draft, we will initiate the IPR declaration)

o Based on this, Vesna will create draft versions of the new specs. - Need to do IPR declaration also. (we need to ping Bob at the appropriate time). - TC needs to decide how we phase this work compared to the Windows 8 updates.

Discussion

Designating new drivers a. What do we need to do regarding a Grandfather clause for this work? How does this

imapct voting on the resolution? Probably not literally a grandfather clause, but what do we do?

Proposals: Designate the new drivers “IVI-<year>”

Would probably want to go with 2014 because we need time to update drivers and processes.


May want to differentiate “generations” from “versions”. E.g., the “IVI-2014 generation includes DoD change

requests”. Then could match the spec number ranges to the generation.

LXI has the notion that you can earn “LXI Compliance” if you comply with either the current version or the

previous version. Once an instrument has earned LXI compliance, it is never withdrawn. Instruments are required

to document the version they are compliant with.

How do we designate “pre-2014” instruments?

Becomes a matter of consortium judgement to decide when to increment the number.

We would anticipate relatively infrequent changes (not every year).

Suppose that a driver does not support the DoD work, but they are Windows 8 compliant, then what would they do?

- The Foundation would not preclude a vendor stating that the driver complies with IVI-2012. - The vendor could certainly explain that the driver is IVI-2012 compliance, and also support the

IVI extensions for Win-8 (not a very tidy answer). - The Foundation could define a tidy answer – “IVI-Windows8 compliance), so the citation would

“IVI-2012 with IVI-Windows8”. This would be in the spec - Regardless IVI-2013 (or 2014 or whatever) would IMPLY Windows8 compliance. - The specs will continue to evolve, so if a customer wants that “little piece” e.g., FGen 12.0. Then

the citation will still be something like IVI-2033 with FGen 12.0. - It would be possible to make an additional rule, that no driver introduced after some date must

comply with a certain IVI generation (or else it is not compliant with IVI at all). Probably need to raise the bar over time, but not very aggresively.

- When registering a driver on the IVI website would need to provide the generation it complies with.

Proposal

Create the notion of an IVI Generation. From time-to-time the consortium will define a version of the specifications as a new generation, to be designated IVI-<year>. This will establish a specific minimum version of each spec that is required to cite compliance with the IVI generation. (note the benefit of using years that are distinct from spec numbers).

As specs are updated, a table somewhere on the IVI website, would expand from the single minimum version to other versions that are within that generation.

The DoD/Qual work would be done as a generation (2013 or 2014?) o 2014 is nice because it indicates when the first driver would realistically be available o 2013 is nice because it indicates when the spec was (shall be?) passed. o If we use 2014 as the generation, we will decide sometime during the year

(nominally by mid-year) what will be included in 2014. However, when we pass changed before that date we can declare that it will be included in that generation.

o This group recommends we use 2014 for the DoD work per the explanation in the previous bullet.

At this point the consortium will not take up the issue of if compliance to some minimum generation is required to claim IVI compliance. However, the time may come when we could set such a requirement. If we did, would need to have a substantial buffer time (e.g., LXI goes back current version and one before + a time buffer).

Next steps


This seems to be in the domain of the BoD and Operating Procedures. Need to raise as a topic at the BoD this week, presumably assigning someone to draft Operating Procedures update to be done before the technical content is passed.

ACTION: Joe raise this as BoD.

IVI-COM/NET boilerplate (see notes from John)

Discussed, updated prose slightly. Only action item in text resolved before submitting these minutes (Joe).

Required Testing (see notes from John)

Note – need to resolve how we handle the models supported. Proposal is to limit required testing across models.

Notes embedded in notes embedded in table above.

Meeting 2012-10-11

(attendance…)

Review changes to boilerplate

Changes

Removed TM and ® symbols

Removed reference to National Instruments as support contact

Removed note to take action from embedded document.

Reviewed document and finalized. Embedded in these notes.

Establish next steps with compliance citation questions Per notes yesterday, we consider the matter closed from the perspective of the DoD/Qual working group as the BoD

takes upthe issue with the intent of creating the notion of an IVI Generation to represent the accumulated work we

have done here.

How we handle the testing requirement and reporting of the testing, what spec to put the requirements in, etc.

Did various general updates to the embedded document. Plan to:

Tidy up the formatting and add it to IVI 3.1 (perhaps just before the existing compliance section possibly replacing

5.2.2 Verification Process), then add the proper sections to the IVI Compliance document.

ACTION: Vesna and Jon to adapt this material as necessary and incorporate into an IVI 3.1 change document.

Required IO Operations (Discuss Thursday – details from John) Notes taken in the proposal, embedded in this document (Need to get from John H). Will be ready for final review

after John makes edits committed in this meeting.


Web Forum

IVI Web Forum Policy.docx

Other discussion:

- Privacy Policy – can we create it on the forum? (no, probably requires legal advice).

- Not responsibility

- Conosrtium needs some protection from moderators, moderators need to agree to some policy that

preserves the IVI privacy policy.

- How to get this rolling:

o Intent is to sign up for a year, then see how it has gone.

o Something to announce the availability of the forum, get vendors members to publish the

lilnk.

o Setup the actual forum mechanics with vendor.

o Have discussed pre-populating with consortium driven traffic. Should we do this? This

could get us practice in all rolls (user, moderator, etc).

When do we kick off the site?

When do we publicly launch?

What else needs to be completed before launching publicly?

ACTIONS:

1. Privacy policy

a. What sort of responsibilities do the moderators have? Are they wearing a company hat, an

IVI hat, or a personal hat? Do the moderators need to accept some sort of agreement

regarding this? What sort of agreement does the moderator need to accept?

b. Need a disclaimer that protects IVI from anything done on the website

c. Need an IVI Legal documents

ACTION (Joe Oct 19 send to this committee):

Write the parameters around the privace policy.

Also write parameters around moderator agreement.

Parameters around a disclaimer that protects IVI from things on the web site.

Send to Steve, Jon, Jochen, Vinod for review.


ACTION (Steve, Vesna, Nov 1) – will tell us what corporate attorneys would require in order

to participate.

ACTION (Steve On or around Nov 1) Call meeting to collect inputs and finalize inputs

ACTION: (Bob – should have response within 1 week.) send to Andy Updegrove to convert

into a policy.

ACTION (Bob to call): Committee review policy, have a meeting if there are problems.

Web Forum Committee:

Vinod, Steve, Jon, Kirk, Jochen, Joe, Bob

Whomever is calling meetings – try for 8AM Sing. (5PM Pac, 6PM Mtn, 7PM Cen, 8PM

If possible meet the week of November 5, Jochen will be in CET.

2. Finish and approve the Web Forum policy document (IVI 1.4)

a. ACTION: (Kirk: October 24)

3. Go ahead and get the site up – host some initial discussions, get to know the tool, and prepopulate

a. Annual cost ~$3600 (paid as $300/month). Requires 1 year commitment.

b. Need to nominate moderators

Above Web Forum committee needs to select the date to turn on the web site privately and

publicly.

Recommendation that we go ahead on bring the site up privately.

Identifying Administrators and Moderators.

Would like Bob and Kirk to be an administrator.

Moderators:

- Vesna

- MathWorks: tbd

- Agilent: technical support team

Education plan Question – should we plan to deliver in Orlando in February?

IVI Meeting is set for February 25-27.

Plan to provide a light lunch (e.g., pizza)

Probably begin around noon, with presentation from 1-3:30

Make available to individual companies to promote through their mechanisms

Announce the web forum

Will plan on reserving apprporiate facilities, probably wrap-up foundation meeting by noon.

Vendors are invited to have a table setup at back of room to demonstrate IVI with their IDE.


Ongoing meetings and next steps

Additional discussions and actions after this meeting:

1. Resolution this week to start the change process (Joe) 2. Finalize required IO Operations change document (validate via e-mail) (Will go out with the

notes from this meeting) 3. Finalize required Test requirements change document and compliance document (validate via e-

mail) Plan on conference call for this. (available in about 1 week) 4. Complete table of spec changes (available about 1-2 weeks)

*** Phone conference to validate previous items -- only meeting unless we discover a problem

Friday October 26, 8AM Pacific, 9Mtn, 10 Central, 11 Eas, 17:00 CET, 23:00 Sing

*** Will plan on this meeting time.

5. Send out rolled up change document (table with specs and changes, major/minor) 6. Start 45-day review and IPR declaration (Start by January 9 (but end of year if we can)) 7. Plan on a final vote at the February meeting

Other things to complete

1. Operating procedures/creation of “IVI Generations” -- needs to be done and ready for vote February (so, done and some review). (Joe will draft discussion document for this week)

2. Discuss and finalize IVI Web Forum poicy (hand-off from this group to BoD). Timeline is ASAP. 3. Review and ongoing work on training (hand-off to marketing?) 4. Message to DoD after substantially complete (Joe/Jon) (After February meeting)


6. Technical Committee

General Meeting Info:

Date of Meeting: October 12, 2012 Location: Boston, MA Chairperson: Jon Bellin Minutes Prepared By: Vesna Jadric

Topics To Be Discussed:

Review Agenda

Review Voting Members In Attendance

Patent Call

Approve minutes from the June 2012 Technical Committee Meeting

Review outcome of recent eVotes, IPR Declarations, Editorial Changes, and Reviews

Review Action Items from Previous Meeting

Review Spec Status Document

Working Group Topics

Vote on VISA 5.1 Specifications:

VPP-4.3: The VISA Library

VPP-4.3.2: VISA Implementation Specification for Textual Languages

IVI-6.3: IVI VISA PXI Plug-in

IVI DoD Quality WG

Vote to start effort officially

Status report

Impact of IVI Generations Concept on Compliance Document

Windows 8 WG

Status report

New Business

Documenting the class spec version with which the driver complies

Adding unsigned integers to the Table 5.6 in the IVI-3.1 specification Discuss Upcoming Meetings

New Action Items

Voting Members In Attendance

Present Organization Name Name

Aeroflex Corporation Mark Meldrum

X Agilent Technologies Joe Mueller


Present Organization Name Name

Bustec Ltd. Fred Bloennigen

DRS-SSI Don Essner

X EADS North America Test & Services Chris Gorringe

Keithley Instruments John Ryland

X MathWorks Rob Purser / Vinod Cherian

X National Instruments Jon Bellin

X Pacific MindWorks, Inc. Kirk Fertitta

Rockwell Collins Jason Schares

X Rohde & Schwarz Jochen Wolle

Tektronix Santanu Pradhan

X Teradyne, Inc. Teresa Lopes

VTI Instruments Sangram Gaikwad

There are 7 voting members in attendance, which satisfies the requirements for a quorum of 4 Voting Members. (Quorum is 25% of Voting Members. There are currently 14 Voting Members.)

Patent Call

Please be aware that this meeting is being held under the Intellectual Property Rights policy adopted by IVI Foundation. If you do not have a copy of this policy, please see me during this meeting. You may also view and download a copy of that policy at the Organization>>Legal Documents section of the Consortium website. At this time, I would ask that anyone in attendance inform me if they are personally aware of any claims under any patent applications or issued patents that would be likely to be infringed by an implementation of the specification or other work product that is the subject of this meeting. You need not be the inventor of such patent or patent application in order to inform us of its existence, nor will you be held responsible for expressing a belief that turns out to be inaccurate.

Approve minutes from the June 2012 Technical Committee Meeting

The minutes from the June 2012 Technical Committee Meeting are posted on the IVI Foundation web site. No issues were brought up with the minutes. The minutes are accepted.

Review outcome of recent IPR Declarations, eVotes, and Reviews

VISA 5.1 IPR Declaration

The IPR Declaration for the VISA 5.1 specifications concluded on August 16, 2012. The results are listed below.

Company Voting Member Representative

Option 3B Option 3C


Option 3A

Aeroflex Marv Rosner

Agilent Joe Mueller

x

Bustec Ltd. Torsten Rissel x

DRS Sustainment Systems Don Essner x

EADS North America Test & Services Dan Masters

Keithley Instruments John Ryland

x

MathWorks Rob Purser

x

National Instruments Jon Bellin

x

Pacific MindWorks, Inc. Kirk Fertitta

x

Rockwell Collins Jason Schares x

Rohde & Schwarz Jochen Wolle

x

Tektronix Santanu Pradhan x

Teradyne Teresa Lopes x

VTI Instruments Tom Sarfi

x

VISA 5.1 Major Changes On June 27th, Dan Mondrik announced VISA 5.1 major changes via the email below

From: Dan Mondrik <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Date: 06/27/2012 8:33 AM Subject:VISA 5.1 specs posted for final review

http://ivifoundation.org/membership/committees/VISA/Documents/VISA%205.1%20Specifications%20Final%20Review.2012-0618.zip

This is linked from the VISA working group page and you will need to log in to download the .zip file. There are 3 specs included in this review: VPP-4.3: The VISA Library

VPP-4.3.2: VISA Implementation Specification for Textual Languages

IVI-6.3: IVI VISA PXI Plug-in

I believe the review period is 45 calendar days, which should conclude on Friday August 10. Once that is complete, assuming all feedback is cosmetic/editorial in nature, we can proceed with an email vote to approve the specifications. Thanks, Dan Mondrik

National Instruments

VISA Working Group Chairman

The review period for these major changes has ended and the feedback has been addressed. The specifications are now ready for vote.




IVI-3.1 Editorial Changes

On June 6th, Vesna Jadric announced IVI-3.1 editorial changes via the email below

From: <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Date: 06/29/2012 11:23 AM Subject:Editorial Review: IVI-3.1 Spec Changes (6-day review)

Greetings: During the June IVI Foundation meeting in Munich, National Instruments was tasked with updating IVI-3.1 specification, Section 5.16.5, to revert the editorial change made in 2009 in the Table 5-10: Attribute ID Base Values for IVI-C Drivers. Please refer to the change document for more information about the issue and suggested update. The change document and the updated specification are posted to the IVI-3.1 web site. The review period for this editorial change is June 29 - July 13, 2012. Please contact me with any feedback. Thanks, Vesna Jadric Instrument Drivers/IVI | National Instruments | 512-683-5360

The review period for the IVI-3.1 editorial change has ended without objections. The editorial changes are accepted and have been posted.

IVI.NET Editorial Changes

On July 23th, John Harvey announced IVI.NET editorial changes in various IVI specifications via the email below

From: HARVEY,JOHN (A-Loveland,ex1) Sent: July 23, 2012 12:10 PM To: '[email protected]' ([email protected]) Subject: IVI.NET Editorial Changes Review Period July 23 – August 3 Greetings: During the last IVI.NET WG meeting, the WG reviewed outstanding defects and as part of addressing the defects, agreed to a set of editorial changes that primarily deal with consistency issues, both internal to the specs and between the specs and the IVI.NET Shared Components. Please refer to the change document for more information about the changes. The documents to be reviewed are posted on the IVI.NET WG page on the IVI web site: http://www.ivifoundation.org/membership/committees/DotNET/Default.aspx The review period for this editorial change is July 23 - August 3, 2012. Please contact me with any feedback. Thanks,

http://www.ivifoundation.org/membership/committees/IviDriverArchitecturev3_1/Default.aspx

http://www.ivifoundation.org/membership/committees/DotNET/Default.aspx


John Harvey Agilent Technologies 970-678-3535

The review period for the IVI.NET editorial changes has ended without objections. The editorial changes are accepted and have been posted.

Review Action Items from June 2012 Meeting

Owner Action Item Status

Vesna Jadric

Verify with Dan Mondrik whether he wants to

run IVI-6.3 as a separate vote.

If so, determine whether this is reasonable

given the different requirements for approve

new specs versus modification to existing specs.

Determine whether one or more IPR

Declaration periods are needed.

Make sure announcements (review periods,

IPR declarations) go out over email

Based on the above, determine whether a

separate entry is needed in the In Progress tab

and create one if so.

[07/02/12] Agreed to conduct one vote and to have one IPR Declaration period. Complete.

Vesna Jadric Run editorial change ASAP to revert the change made in 2009 to the attribute ID range table in IVI-3.1.

[07/13/12] Complete.

Vesna Jadric, Jon Bellin

Determine whether to use option 1 or option 2, as specified in Section 1.9.3, “IVI-3.1 spec - Potential issue with the IVI-C attribute ID base value range”, above.

[06/28/12] Option 1. Complete.

Vesna Jadric Record resolution (2012-06-20: #1) in the Lifecycle document.


Joe Mueller Notify the Foundation via the listserver that the Foundation will be participating in the LXI Event in China, and invite others to participate.

Bob Helsel Notify the LXI Consortium that the Foundation wants a few hours at the LXI Event in China.


Vesna Jadric

Send out October schedule noting that devising it involved a complex optimization effort at the June meeting and thus no modifications will be entertained.


Teresa Lopes Notify the Foundation when and where the ATML will be in February so we can use it as an opportunity to use the educational material



Bob Helsel Recommend location for each of the three meeting in 2013. Send out recommendation for (at least) February/March by August 15

[09/11/12] Partially complete.

Review Spec Status Document

The group reviewed and edited the Spec Status Document.

IVI_Spec_Lifecycle_Status.xlsx

Working Group Topics

Vote on the VISA 5.1 specifications

The VISA working group has updated the following two specifications

VPP-4.3: The VISA Library

VPP-4.3.2: VISA Implementation Specification for Textual Languages and created a new IVI-6.3: IVI VISA PXI Plug-in specification to extend the VISA definition to include:

Extensions to control VXI-1 4.0 compliant controllers. Specifically the ability to:

o Support new address modifiers for 2eVME/2eSST

o Control the additional star trigger lines

o Assert new SYNC100 utility bus signal

Extensions to control PXI devices including:

o A PXI BACKPLANE resource class for mapping/unmapping triggers and reserving

triggers

o Support 64-bit base address registers

A common user-kernel driver interface for PXI

The review period for these major changes has ended on August 10, 2012. All feedback received during and after the review period has been incorporated in the specs. Resolution (2012-10-12: #1): Joe Mueller moves that the IVI Foundation approve the VISA 5.1 specifications as listed above. Seconded by Kirk Fertitta. The vote was 6-0-0. The resolution is approved. Action item: Vesna to notify Joe to bring this up at the BoD meeting. Action item: Vesna to record this resolution in the lifecycle document.

IVI DoD Quality WG


In October 2011 TC meeting in Austin, we informally agreed to form a working group to come up with a plan to

address feedback received from DoD ATS.

The goal of this working group is to address general IVI concerns expressed by the US DoD, with a special emphasis

on updates to the specifications that will improve the customer experience through improved documentation,

capabilities, and testing.

Resolution (2012-10-12: #2): Chris Gorringe moves that we officially create an IVI DoD Quality working group to address the feedback received from DoD ATS and make major and minor changes to the IVI specifications as needed. Seconded by Kirk Fertitta. The vote was 6-0-0. The resolution is approved. Joe Mueller will lead the working group. Action item: Vesna to record this resolution in the lifecycle document.

Status Report

Joe Mueller will be posting detailed minutes to the Working Group’s web site.

Impact of IVI Generations Concept on Compliance Document

The WG came up with the concept of IVI Generations. This will be pursued as an addition to the Operating Procedures and will be discussed at the BoD. The purpose of the concept is to enable driver suppliers and users to cite a self-consistent set of IVI driver standards. This requires that the compliance document contains a place for the driver supplier to cite the IVI Generation with which the driver complies. Action Item: If possible, Vesna will include this change in the proposed compliance document change she will be submitting before the October 26 conference call.

Windows 8 WG

Due to the introduction of the new Start and Apps screens in Windows 8, the Working Group will be making minor changes in the IVI-3.17 specification. The Working Group will also update the IVI-3.1 specification to explicitly exclude the Windows 8 RT support. All the spec updates will be considered a Minor change and will be sent out for a 21-day review.

New Business

Documenting the class spec version with which the driver complies

John Harvey brought to our attention the issue with documenting the class spec version with which the driver complies in the following email:


“The topic I’d like to raise is one related to version compliance. When we publish a driver, the compliance info includes the version of the class spec with which the driver complies. With the introduction of the .NET material into the specs, most of our pre-2010 specs claim compliance with versions of the spec that are at least one major version older than the current version, even when nothing changed in the spec with regard to IVI-COM. This has raised a couple of eyebrows, with people thinking that we are not keeping drivers up-to-date with the specifications. The problem is actually broader than that, since there is no tie between the class spec version and versions of IVI-3.1, 3.2, 3.4, 3.17, and for .NET, 3.18. We don’t want to specify compliance with multiple specs in a driver – that would be really confusing. So the question is, can we agree on a good way of simply describing to a customer version compliance so that we unambiguously communicate what the expectations of the driver’s capabilities should be.” This topic has been discussed in the IviDoDQual WG group (see Joe’s notes) and tabled for now until the WG finishes work on creating “IVI Generations” which might solve this issue. Jon’s opinion is to have a nicely summarized history of changes to the IVI specification on the IVI web site. This will be in conjunction with other part of the web site where the baseline spec versions for each generation will be documented. Action item: John Harvey will come up with an example of what might come up on the web site.

Adding unsigned integers to the Table 5.6 in the IVI-3.1 specification

From Kirk Fertitta: “To date, the IVI specs have prohibited the use of unsigned types in IVI-COM and IVI.NET APIs. This was done to avoid conflicts with languages (principally VB) that do not support unsigned types. However, since VS2005, Visual Basic.NET has supported unsigned types and the importance of VB6 supported has waned. Additionally, the recent proposal for a standard DirectIO interface calls for the use of an unsigned type (BYTE). The question posed to the committee is whether or not we should consider altering IVI 3.1 to allow for other unsigned types.” IVI-3.1 already allowed System.Byte (and arrays thereof) for IVI.NET. The DoD Quality Working group agreed to specify allowed types for IVI-C and IVI-COM to represent bytes. The question is whether to add additional unsigned types. Kirk raised the issue of CLS compliance. Upon review of the Microsoft documentation, it was determined that System.Byte is CLS compliant, whereas unsigned int16, int32, and int64 are not. The consensus was not to add any additional unsigned types.

Discuss Upcoming Meetings

The next meeting will be Feb 25-27, 2013 (Monday - Wednesday) in Orlando.

Working Group Time

DoD ATS Feedback 2 hr

Implementation of IVI Generations Concept and Spec Version History

2 hr

First Real Run of IVI Education Material (afternoon of the last 4 hr


Working Group Time

day)

VISA.NET 1 day

IVI.NET 2 hr

VISA 2 hr

Technical Committee Meeting and BoD 3 hr

Marketing Committee General 1 hr

Shared Components Management 1 hr

File Format 4 hr

Criteria for IVI meeting locations (from Feb 2010 TC meeting minutes): For US meetings:

Major airport hub that allows most members a non-stop flight (examples: Denver, Dallas, Orlando, Las Vegas, Chicago, St Louis, Los Angeles, Atlanta)

Hotel journey is 20 minutes on Google maps.

Sleeping room price should target $100 but not exceed $130. Willing to go higher on sleeping room price if it is walking distance to restaurants and avoids rental car.

Internet bundled into the cost. (From June 2012 TC meeting minutes): We discussed whether to increase the limits on hotel room and meeting fees. Bob said that NI has been the controlling factor. Jon said NI was ok increasing the maximum limit on hotel rooms from $149 to $169 and the maximum limit on meeting fees from $300 to $400. June 2013 meeting: Long Beach, CA (June 19-21, 2013) October 2013 meeting: Dallas, TX (Oct 14-16, 2013)?

Summary of Action Items Created at the October 2012 Technical Committee Meeting


Vesna Jadric Vesna to notify Joe about the VISA 5.1 vote for the BoD meeting.

[10/12/2012] Complete.

Vesna Jadric Vesna to record the Resolution (2012-10-12: #1) in the lifecycle document.

[10/16/2012] Complete.

Vesna Jadric Vesna to record the Resolution (2012-10-12: #2) in the lifecycle document.

[10/16/2012] Complete.

Joe Mueller Notify the Foundation via the listserver that the Foundation will be participating in the LXI Event in China, and invite others to participate.

Teresa Lopes Notify the Foundation when and where the ATML will be in February so we can use it as an opportunity



to use the educational material.

Vesna Jadric

If possible, Vesna will include the IVI Generations change in the proposed compliance document change she will be submitting before the October 26 conference call.

John Harvey John Harvey will come up with an example of what might come up on the web site when documenting the baseline spec versions for each generation.

Adjourn

Meeting Adjourned.


7. IVI Board – Updating Operating Procedures

Oct. 2012

Submitted by Joe Mueller

IVI_1 2_OperatingProcedures_v1 7 2012-10-11.docx