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National Instruments Corporation,
doing business as A trade name, trading name, or business name, is a pseudonym used by companies that do not operate under their registered company name. The term for this type of alternative name is a "fictitious" business name. Registering the fictitious name w ...
NI, is an American multinational company with international operation. Headquartered in
Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the county seat, seat and largest city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and Williamson County, Texas, Williamson co ...
, it is a producer of
automated test equipment Automatic test equipment or automated test equipment (ATE) is any apparatus that performs tests on a device, known as the device under test (DUT), equipment under test (EUT) or unit under test (UUT), using automation to quickly perform measurements ...
and
virtual instrumentation Virtual instrumentation is the use of customizable software and modular measurement hardware to create user-defined measurement systems, ''called virtual instruments''. Traditional hardware instrumentation systems are made up of fixed hardware co ...
software. Common applications include
data acquisition Data acquisition is the process of sampling signals that measure real-world physical conditions and converting the resulting samples into digital numeric values that can be manipulated by a computer. Data acquisition systems, abbreviated by the acro ...
,
instrument control Instrument control consists of connecting a desktop instrument to a computer and taking measurements. History In the late 1960s the first bus used for communication was developed by Hewlett-Packard and was called HP-IB ( Hewlett-Packard Interfa ...
and
machine vision Machine vision (MV) is the technology and methods used to provide imaging-based automatic inspection and analysis for such applications as automatic inspection, process control, and robot guidance, usually in industry. Machine vision refers to ...
. In 2016, the company sold products to more than 35,000 companies with revenues of US$1.23 billion.


History


Founding

In the early 1970s,
James Truchard James Joseph Truchard (born June 25, 1943, in Austin County, Texas) is an American billionaire, electrical engineer, and a businessman who is the co-founder and former president and CEO of National Instruments, a company producing automated tes ...
, Jeff Kodosky, and Bill Nowlin were working at the
University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...
Applied Research Laboratories. As part of a project conducting research for the
U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...
, the men were using early computer technology to collect and analyze data. Frustrated with the inefficient data collection methods they were using, the three decided to create a product that would enable their task to be done more easily. In 1976, working in the garage at Truchard's home, the three founded a new company. They attempted to incorporate under several names, including Longhorn Instruments and Texas Digital, but all were rejected. Finally, they settled on the current name of National Instruments. With a $10,000 loan from Interfirst Bank, the group bought a PDP-11/04 minicomputer and, for their first project, designed and built a
GPIB Glycoprotein Ib (GPIb), also known as CD42, is a component of the GPIb-V-IX complex on platelets. The GPIb-V-IX complex binds von Willebrand factor, allowing platelet adhesion and platelet plug formation at sites of vascular injury. It is defici ...
interface for it. Their first sale was the result of a cold call to
Kelly Air Force Base Kelly Field (formerly Kelly Air Force Base) is a Joint-Use facility located in San Antonio, Texas. It was originally named after George E. M. Kelly, the first member of the U.S. military killed in the crash of an airplane he was piloting. In ...
in
San Antonio, Texas ("Cradle of Freedom") , image_map = , mapsize = 220px , map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1= State , subdivision_name1 = Texas , subdivision_t ...
. Because the trio were still employed by the University of Texas, in 1977 they hired their first full-time employee, Kim Harrison-Hosen, who handled orders, billing, and customer inquiries. By the end of the year they had sold three boards, and, to attract more business, the company produced and sent a mailer to 15,000 users of the PDP-11 minicomputer. As sales increased, they were able to move into a real office space in 1978, occupying a office at 9513 Burnet Road in Austin, Texas.


1980s

At the end of the 1970s, the company booked $400,000 in orders, recording a $60,000 profit. In 1980 Truchard, Kodosky, and Nowlin quit their jobs to devote themselves full-time to National Instruments, and at the end of the year moved the company to a larger office, renting of office space. To assist in generating revenue, the company undertook numerous special projects, working on a fuel-pump credit-card system and a waveform generator for U.S. Navy sonar acoustic testing. By 1981, the company reached the $1 million sales mark, leading them to move to a office in 1982. In 1983 National Instruments reached an organizational milestone, developing their first
GPIB Glycoprotein Ib (GPIb), also known as CD42, is a component of the GPIb-V-IX complex on platelets. The GPIb-V-IX complex binds von Willebrand factor, allowing platelet adhesion and platelet plug formation at sites of vascular injury. It is defici ...
board to connect instruments to IBM PCs. With the arrival of the Macintosh computer, however, the company felt ready to take advantage of the new graphical interfaces. Kodosky began a research initiative with the assistance of student researchers at the University of Texas into ways to exploit the new interface. This led to the creation of NI's flagship product, the
LabVIEW Laboratory Virtual Instrument Engineering Workbench (LabVIEW) is a system-design platform and development environment for a visual programming language from National Instruments. The graphical language is named "G"; not to be confused with G-co ...
graphical development platform for the Macintosh computer, which was released in 1986. The software allows engineers and scientists to program graphically, by "wiring" icons together instead of typing text-based code. By allowing people to use a more intuitive, less-structured development environment, their productivity greatly increased, making LabVIEW quite popular. The following year, a version of LabVIEW, known as LabWindows, was released for the DOS environment. The company had 100 employees by 1986. As part of the company's decision to begin direct sales of its products, NI opened its first international branch, in
Tokyo, Japan Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...
in 1987.


1990s

After growing their staff enough to take over almost the entire building they were renting, in 1990 NI moved to a new building at 6504 Bridge Point Parkway, which the company purchased in 1991. The building, located along
Lake Austin Lake Austin, formerly Lake McDonald, is a water reservoir on the Colorado River in Austin, Texas. The reservoir was formed in 1939 by the construction of Tom Miller Dam by the Lower Colorado River Authority. Lake Austin is one of the seven High ...
near the Loop 360 Bridge, became known as "Silicon Hills = Bridge Point." NI received their first patent for LabVIEW in 1991. Later that year, they introduced Signal Conditioning eXtensions for Instrumentation (SCXI) to expand the signal-processing capabilities of the PC, and, in 1992, LabVIEW was first released for Windows-based PCs and Unix workstations. To further assist their customers, NI also created the National Instruments Alliance Partner program, attracting a worldwide selection of third-party developers, systems integrators, and consultants who could extend the capabilities of the NI hardware and software. With LabVIEW now available to a much larger audience, in 1993 the company reached the milestone of $100 million in annual sales. To attract C/C++ programmers, later that year NI introduced
LabWindows/CVI LabWindows/CVI (CVI is short for C for Virtual Instrumentation) is an ANSI C programming environment for test and measurement developed by National Instruments. The program was originally released as LabWindows for DOS in 1987, but was soon revis ...
. The following year an industrious employee began experiments with the relatively new World Wide Web and developed natinst.com, the company's very first web page. As the company continued to grow, they began to run out of room in their approximately campus. In 1994, NI broke ground on a new campus, located at a site along North Mopac boulevard in northern Austin. By this time, NI had reached 1000 employees. The new NI campus, which opened in 1998, was designed to be employee-friendly. It contains dedicated "play" areas, including basketball and volleyball courts, an employee gym, and a campus-wide walking trail. Each of the buildings on the campus are lined with windows and feature an open floor plan, so that the employees seated in cubicles throughout the building are never far from the sun and views of northwest Austin. To maintain the focus on equality among the employees, even "Dr. T", as the employees call their CEO, sits in an open cubicle and does not have an assigned parking space. Employees had been granted stock in the privately held company as part of their compensation packages. When the company chose to go public in 1995, over 300 current and former employees owned stock. The company is now listed on the
NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...
exchange as NATI. By the late 1990s, customers had begun using LabVIEW in industrial automation applications. With LabVIEW and the more advanced DAQ boards provided by the company, engineers could now replace expensive, fixed-function, vendor-defined instruments with a custom PC-based system that would acquire, analyze, and present data with added flexibility and a lower cost. With the company's acquisition of Georgetown Systems Lookout software, NI products were further incorporated into applications run on the factory-floor. By 1996, the company had reached $200 million in annual sales, and was named to Forbes magazine's 200 Best Small Companies list. Over the next several years, the engineers at NI continued to stretch the boundaries of virtual instrumentation, releasing machine vision software and hardware, which allow cameras to act as sensors, and motion control hardware and software. NI also introduced the CompactPCI-based PXI, an open industry standard for modular measurement and automation, and NI TestStand, which provides for tracking high-volume manufacturing tests.


2000s

User traffic and e-commerce rapidly improved after the company acquired the ni.com domain and began investing in web technologies to better highlight their products. The company quickly introduced online configuration tools to help customers decide which NI products would best interact to solve their problem, and introduced NI Developer Zone, which provides the end-user developers access to example programs, sample code, and development tips, as well as forums in which users and NI employees could help answer questions about the products. In the 2000s, NI began exporting most of its manufacturing overseas by first opening its first international manufacturing plant in
Debrecen Debrecen ( , is Hungary's second-largest city, after Budapest, the regional centre of the Northern Great Plain region and the seat of Hajdú-Bihar County. A city with county rights, it was the largest Hungarian city in the 18th century and i ...
,
Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
. This plant helped to diversify the company's manufacturing capabilities, which had been centered at company headquarters in Austin. NI now manufactures nearly 90% of its production in Debrecen

and has expanded several times in the last decade. In 2011, with a multimillion-dollar grant from the government, NI increased production in Debrecen by approximately 20%. With state-of-the-art automation processes, headcount increased by only 2%. In 2002, the company dedicated the Building C on their Mopac campus, which became the headquarters for the company's R&D operations. Upon completion of this building, the NI campus finally had enough capacity to move all Austin-based employees to a single location. Following the company model of selling directly to customers, by 2006 NI had opened 21 sales offices in Europe and 12 offices in the Asia/Pacific region, as well as a multitude of offices in the Americas, Africa, and the Middle East. Research and Development centers are located in the U.S.,
Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
,
India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
,
Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
,
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
,
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
, and
Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...
.


2010s

In January 2013, National Instruments acquired all outstanding shares of Digilent Inc., which became a wholly owned subsidiary. Digilent was founded in 2000 by two Washington State University electrical engineering professors, Clint Cole and Gene Apperson and grew to become a multinational corporation in the engineering education sector, with sales of test and development products to thousands of universities. Digilent developed the open standard
Pmod Interface Pmod interface (peripheral module interface) is an open standard defined by Digilent Inc. in the ''Digilent Pmod Interface Specification'' for connecting peripheral modules to FPGA and microcontroller development boards. Overview Modules are av ...
.


2020s

On June 16, 2020, National Instruments announced that they were officially changing the company's name to "NI". On May 4, 2021, NI announced the acquisition of monoDrive, a provider of ultra-high fidelity simulation software for
advanced driver-assistance system An advanced driver-assistance system (ADAS) is any of a groups of electronic technologies that assist drivers in driving and parking functions. Through a safe human-machine interface, ADAS increase car and road safety. ADAS uses automated technol ...
s (ADAS) and autonomous vehicle development. In March 2022, it was announced that NI had completed the acquisition of Heinzinger Automotive GmbH, the electronic vehicle systems business of
Rosenheim Rosenheim is a city in Bavaria, Germany. It is an independent city located in the centre of the district of Rosenheim (Upper Bavaria), and is also the seat of its administration. It is located on the west bank of the Inn at the confluence of the ...
-based Heinzinger electronic GmbH.


Products

National Instruments' engineering software includes: *
LabVIEW Laboratory Virtual Instrument Engineering Workbench (LabVIEW) is a system-design platform and development environment for a visual programming language from National Instruments. The graphical language is named "G"; not to be confused with G-co ...
, a graphical development environment * LabVIEW Communications System Design Suite, A design environment designed for rapid deployment of communication systems. *
LabWindows/CVI LabWindows/CVI (CVI is short for C for Virtual Instrumentation) is an ANSI C programming environment for test and measurement developed by National Instruments. The program was originally released as LabWindows for DOS in 1987, but was soon revis ...
, an
ANSI C ANSI C, ISO C, and Standard C are successive standards for the C programming language published by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22/WG 14 of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the ...
programming environment *
Measurement Studio NI Measurement Studio is a set of test and measurement components built by National Instruments, that integrates into the Microsoft Visual Studio environment. It includes extensive support for accessing instrumentation hardware. It has drivers an ...
, a set of components for
Microsoft Visual Studio Visual Studio is an integrated development environment (IDE) from Microsoft. It is used to develop computer programs including websites, web apps, web services and mobile apps. Visual Studio uses Microsoft software development platforms such a ...
* NI TestStand, for test execution sequencing * NI VeriStand for real-time test * NI DIAdem for data management *
NI Multisim NI Multisim (formerly MultiSIM) is an electronic schematic capture and simulation program which is part of a suite of circuit design programs, along with NI Ultiboard. Multisim is one of the few circuit design programs to employ the original ...
for circuit design *
NI Ultiboard NI Ultiboard or formerly ULTIboard is an electronic Printed Circuit Board Layout program which is part of a suite of circuit design programs, along with NI Multisim. One of its major features is the Real Time Design Rule Check, a feature that wa ...
for PCB design * NI Vision Builder for Automated Inspection * NI LabVIEW SignalExpress for data logging * NI Switch Executive for switch management * NI Requirements Gateway for requirements tracking National Instruments' hardware platforms include: * NI
CompactRIO CompactRIO (or cRIO) is a real-time embedded industrial controller made by National Instruments for industrial control systems. The CompactRIO is a combination of a real-time controller, reconfigurable IO Modules (RIO), FPGA module and an Etherne ...
, programmable
FPGA A field-programmable gate array (FPGA) is an integrated circuit designed to be configured by a customer or a designer after manufacturinghence the term '' field-programmable''. The FPGA configuration is generally specified using a hardware de ...
-based
industrial controller An industrial control system (ICS) is an electronic control system and associated instrumentation used for industrial process control. Control systems can range in size from a few modular panel-mounted controllers to large interconnected and in ...
* NI roboRIO, a robotics controller used standard in the
FIRST Robotics Competition FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) is an international high school robotics competition. Each year, teams of high school students, coaches, and mentors work during a six-week period to build robots capable of competing in that year's game that weig ...
* NI
CompactDAQ CompactDAQ is a data acquisition platform built by National Instruments that includes a broad set of compatible hardware and software.
, data acquisition systems for USB and Ethernet * PXI and PXIe Platforms, a modular instrumentation standard with more than 1,500 products * STS, a production-ready ATE solution for RF, mixed-signal, and MEMS * NI ELVIS, a multi-instrument lab station for teaching technology


Groups


Electronics Workbench Group

The National Instruments Electronics Workbench Group is responsible for creating the
electronic circuit design Electronic circuit design comprises the analysis and synthesis of electronic circuits. Methods To design any electrical circuit, either analog or digital, electrical engineers need to be able to predict the voltages and currents at all places with ...
software
NI Multisim NI Multisim (formerly MultiSIM) is an electronic schematic capture and simulation program which is part of a suite of circuit design programs, along with NI Ultiboard. Multisim is one of the few circuit design programs to employ the original ...
and
NI Ultiboard NI Ultiboard or formerly ULTIboard is an electronic Printed Circuit Board Layout program which is part of a suite of circuit design programs, along with NI Multisim. One of its major features is the Real Time Design Rule Check, a feature that wa ...
, which was previously a
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
-based company that first produced MultiSIM, and integrated ULTIboard with it. Interactive Image Technologies was founded in
Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
,
Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
,
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
by
Joe Koenig Joseph (Joe) Koenig (born August 14, 1930) is a Canadian filmmaker and entrepreneur who was the founder and president of Electronics Workbench. Biography Koenig was born in Dresden, Germany; his family fled Nazi Germany in 1937, emigrating to Ca ...
, and specialized in producing educational movies and documentaries. When the government of Ontario needed an educational tool for teaching
electronics The field of electronics is a branch of physics and electrical engineering that deals with the emission, behaviour and effects of electrons using electronic devices. Electronics uses active devices to control electron flow by amplification ...
in colleges, the company created a circuit simulator called ''Electronics Workbench''. In 1996, Interactive Image Technologies appointed its vice president Roy Bryant to Chief Operating Officer to oversee day-to-day operations of the company and to grow the companies
Electronic Design Automation Electronic design automation (EDA), also referred to as electronic computer-aided design (ECAD), is a category of software tools for designing Electronics, electronic systems such as integrated circuits and printed circuit boards. The tools wo ...
(EDA) products. Bryant is credited with "overseeing the development and marketing of the company's Electronics Workbench EDA product". By 1999, Electronics Workbench was the most popular EDA in the world. In 1998 the company started a strategic partnership with another
electronic design automation Electronic design automation (EDA), also referred to as electronic computer-aided design (ECAD), is a category of software tools for designing Electronics, electronic systems such as integrated circuits and printed circuit boards. The tools wo ...
company named Ultimate Technology from
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,
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who was the European market leader in
printed circuit board A printed circuit board (PCB; also printed wiring board or PWB) is a medium used in Electrical engineering, electrical and electronic engineering to connect electronic components to one another in a controlled manner. It takes the form of a L ...
design software, with their package ULTIboard. Like Electronics Workbench, founder James Post had focused heavily on the educational market and gained PR fame when he organized the distribution of 180,000 demo floppy disks via electronics magazines in Europe. In 1999 the companies merged, and renamed itself after its most well known product, Electronics Workbench. The then current product line consisted of
schematic capture Schematic capture or schematic entry is a step in the design cycle of electronic design automation (EDA) at which the electronic diagram, or electronic schematic of the designed electronic circuit is created by a designer. This is done interactiv ...
and a simulation product named ''
MultiSIM NI Multisim (formerly MultiSIM) is an electronic schematic capture and simulation program which is part of a suite of circuit design programs, along with NI Ultiboard. Multisim is one of the few circuit design programs to employ the original ...
'' and the
printed circuit board A printed circuit board (PCB; also printed wiring board or PWB) is a medium used in Electrical engineering, electrical and electronic engineering to connect electronic components to one another in a controlled manner. It takes the form of a L ...
software called ''
Ultiboard NI Ultiboard or formerly ULTIboard is an electronic Printed Circuit Board Layout program which is part of a suite of circuit design programs, along with NI Multisim. One of its major features is the Real Time Design Rule Check, a feature that wa ...
''. Soon thereafter the combined product suite became worldwide leader in PC based
computer-aided design Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve c ...
. In 2005 the company was acquired by ''National Instruments'', and rebranded as ''National Instruments Electronics Workbench Group''.


Community

Beginning in 1995, National Instruments has held an annual developer conference in Austin, NIWeek. Engineers and scientists from around the world attend the week-long conference at the
Austin Convention Center The Neal Kocurek Memorial Austin Convention Center is a multi-purpose convention center located in Austin, Texas. The building is the home of the Texas Rollergirls, and was also home to the Austin Toros basketball team, until their move to the Ce ...
. Activities center on technical sessions on the company's products as well as the underlying technologies, presented both by NI employees and external presenters. An exhibition hall allows selected industry integrators and suppliers to showcase their products, and various customers or university students also present papers on their work with NI tools.


See also

*
List of companies based in Austin, Texas This is a list of notable companies based in the Austin metropolitan area. Fortune 500 (rankings as of 2021) * Dell Technologies (28) *Oracle (80) *Tesla Inc. (100) Advertising * Door Number 3 * GSD&M * LatinWorks * LIN Media ( Media General ...
*
Mechatronics Mechatronics engineering also called mechatronics, is an interdisciplinary branch of engineering that focuses on the integration of mechanical, electrical and electronic engineering systems, and also includes a combination of robotics, electronics, ...


References


External links

*
NI US Patents
{{Authority control Electronics companies of the United States Manufacturing companies based in Austin, Texas Companies listed on the Nasdaq Electronics companies established in 1976 Electronic test equipment manufacturers 1976 establishments in Texas