Now that we’ve defined the capabilities, we can look at each driver in terms of those it supports.
Custom Specific Driver: This driver supports only IVI inherent capabilities and instrument-specific capabilities, but not base class or class extension capabilities. This lets instrument manufacturers 1) innovate and provide specialized features, and 2) supply IVI drivers for instruments for which no class specification exists, such as network analyzers and Bluetooth testers.
Class Compliant Specific Driver: This driver must support inherent and base class capabilities. These drivers may also support class extensions and instrument-specific capabilities. For IVI-C and IVI-COM drivers, a Class Compliant Specific Driver enables interchangeability through generic instrument Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that can be used with a multitude of instruments. See more about APIs below.
Class Driver: This driver is used for IVI-C only. A Class Driver also supports inherent, base class, and all class extension capabilities. A Class Driver enables instrument interchangeability when using IVI-C Class Compliant Specific Drivers.
For IVI-COM drivers, the IVI inherent capabilities, custom capabilities, and the class capabilities may be provided in a single driver. All IVI-COM drivers include the inherent capabilities. If an IVI-COM driver only has custom and inherent
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