for 30 years, national instruments has revolutionized the way engineers and scientists in industry, government and academia approach measurement and automation. leveraging pcs and commercial technologies, virtual instrumentation increases productivity and return for test, control, and design applications through easy-to-integrate software such as ni labview, and modular measurements and control hardware for pxi, pci, pci express, usb, and ethernet. **with virtual instrumentation, engineers use graphical programming software to create user-defined solutions that meet their specific needs - very different from the proprietary, fixed functionality of traditional instruments. additionally, virtual instrumentation capitalizes on the ever-increasing performance of personal computers. for example, in test, measurement, and control, engineers have used virtual instrumentation to downsize automated test equipment (ate) while experiencing up to a 10 times increase in productivity gains at a fraction of the cost of traditional instrument so