High Speed LAN Instrument Protocol

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HiSLIP (High-Speed LAN Instrument Protocol) is a TCP/IP-based protocol for remote instrument control of LAN-based test and measurement instruments. It was specified by the IVI Foundation [1] and is intended to replace the older VXI-11 [2] protocol. Like VXI-11, HiSLIP is normally used via a library that implements the VISA API. Version 1.4 of the LAN eXtensions for Instrumentation (LXI) standard recommends HiSLIP as “LXI HiSLIP Extended Function for LXI based instrumentation”.

Contents

Benefits

HiSLIP fixes several problems with the VXI-11 protocol (which synchronously sends GPIB commands via SunRPC):

Features

HiSLIP can operate in two different modes:

HiSLIP clients (VISA libraries) have to support both modes. HiSLIP servers (instruments) need to support at least one of them, but can also support both.

A HiSLIP client contacts a server by opening two TCP connections, both to port 4880, and sends packetized messages on both:

Usage

To migrate from VXI-11 to HiSLIP, a user of a VISA library and instrument that support both merely has to change the VISA resource string used to address the instrument. The shortest possible version of a VXI-11 VISA resource string is "TCPIP::<IP address|hostname>::<hislipServer>[,port#]::INSTR". To use the HiSLIP communication channel, such a VISA resource string needs to be changed to: "TCPIP::<IP address|hostname>::hislip0::INSTR". If the HiSLIP server is using a port other than the default of 4880, then it must be specified in the resource string as: "TCPIP::IP address|hostname>::hislip0[,port#]::INSTR".

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References

  1. "IVI-6.1: High-Speed LAN Instrument Protocol (HiSLIP)" (PDF). IVI Foundation.
  2. "VXI-11 Bus Specification". VXI Bus Consortium.