National Instruments announced that it is the first vendor with a manufacturing test license agreement with Broadcom, which will allow NI to provide testing solutions to Broadcom original equipment and design manufacturers.
Broadcom’s MTL program is a new one which allows test equipment vendors to have access to Broadcom’s WLAN and Bluetooth software tools, and technical support resources from Broadcom. In NI’s case, its MTL solution is based on its PXI modular instrumentation platform and PXIe-5644R vector signal transceiver and has direct integration with Broadcom software tools. With the licensing agrement, the test vendor now has Broadcom’s blessing on its ability to thoroughly test and calibrate its chipsets in an R&D or manufacturing environment in order to provide support for OEMs and ODMs.
NI will aid Broadcom customers through its own operations as well as Broadcom-approved business partners.
According to Broadcom, the program is “designed to provide Broadcom OEM customers with validated test systems that reduce time-to-market and improve manufacturing efficiency and product quality.”
Dave Loadman, VP of NI’s mobile devices business segment, said that the combination of the MTL resources and NI’s PXI equipment “will result in one of the industry’s shortest test times and provide an attractive total cost of ownership.”
Prasan Pai, Broadcom’s director of marketing, added that NI’s test equipment is already being used by some of its customers in high-volume manufacturing environments.
