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The article discusses emerging synthetic instruments (SI) and IVI driver solutions. The U.S. Department of Defense's Synthetic Instrument Working Group (SIWG) offered an original definition of SI in 2004 as elemental hardware and software components with standardized interfaces and measurements software which yield a smaller footprint and greater flexibility. The manner in which how an entire test system works is described. The article also explores several emerging standard software input/output (I/O) interfaces for SI.

The author discusses the advantages of the advanced automated test systems implemented in the computer industry in the U.S. He examines how the industry focused on boosting automated test systems in parallel processing, high-speed data transfer as well as in the software-defined services which prompted the commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware to follow the trend. The author emphasizes that the rise of automated test systems will maximize the cost effectiveness of COTS-based hardware device.

The article introduces several test instruments, available in the U.S. The PCI-digitizer cards from Strategic Test Corp. use a 66-megahertz/32-bit PCI-X bus continuously transferring data to the host computer at 225m samples/second. The MXI-Express controller from National Instruments allows 110-Mbps sustained throughput to the host computer. Macraigor Systems LLC has updated the J-Scan boundary-scan debugging and programming tool Version 2.1 which allows circuit designers to facilitate early test development, shortening the development cycle and prototyping process.