Keysight Technologies and the University of California, San Diego, said they successfully tested a 60 GHz radio frequency link that reached speeds of more than two gigabits per second at a distance of 300 meters, adding the test was the world’s longest phased-array, bidirectional link in the band.
The 32-element array reportedly achieved data rates of 4 Gbps at 100 meters and even maintained 500 megabits per second at 800 meter “over most scan angles,” according to a Keysight release on the testing. At 300 meters, data rates were more than 2 Gbps over all scan angles up to plus or minus 45 degrees. UC San Diego creased chip designs for the demo relying on a process from TowerJazz, and Keysight reported the phased array consumed between 3 and 4 watts of DC power in either transmit or receive mode.
In other test news:
Ixia is boosting support for Wi-Fi visibility, adding new features to its Hawkeye network monitoring platform. Hawkeye’s capabilities include proactively generating and analyzing synthetic traffic, including application traffic, to assess performance of applications and services. Ixia added new coverage for wide area networks, local area networks, virtual private networks and cloud access to wireless LANs.
“Enterprises are introducing new business applications and unified communications, and are migrating servers and services to private and public clouds, which can impact their ability to deliver on their customer expectations,” stated Tim Courtenay, managing director for ATIO telecoms division, in a statement. Courtenay added “Extending Hawkeye’s technology coverage to Wi-Fi will provide them with greater control over this critical aspect of the customer experience, eliminating any potential issues associated with their network and Wi-Fi access.”
–ThinkRF, which focuses on small form-factor, low-cost test equipment, appointed a former Viavi Solutions VP to its board. Jim Nerschook, who previously served as Viavi’s VP and GM of wireless instruments division for LTE testing, will serve on ThinkRF’s board and “will be advising ThinkRF on its move towards the emerging ‘5G’ test and analysis market,” according to a company blog post. Nerschook is currently VP of product management at PAR Tech in addition to his role on ThinkRF’s board.
The appointment is reflective of other changes at ThinkRF. The company’s founder and CEO Nikhil Adnani, moved to the CTO role a few weeks ago in favor of putting in the company’s board chairman Jim Roche as president and CEO. The company has also made two product releases in the last two months: a new real-time spectrum analyzer and new software for real-time spectrum analysis.
–Anritsu upgraded its SkyBridge Tools test manager with new features for support of both optical and radio frequency testing. The test automation software now has more fiber testing features as well as support for Anritsu’s portable Site Master S331P cable and antenna analyzer and its PIM MasterMW82119B instruments.
The company also released a new option for its spectrum monitoring software – in particular, a high-speed port scanner designed for quick scans of multiple RF inputs and frequency channels. The software works with Anritsu’s remote spectrum monitors and its Ms27100A spectrum monitor module.
-In an update on its operations, testing company Dekra said it is investing in “internet of things” testing as well as its traditional areas of focus. Dekra said revenues were up 6% in 2016, and that for the first time it employed more than 38,000 people globally. The firm said it opened five new testing labs in China this year, and has added 15 new labs around the world over the past two years.
–Teledyne LeCroy launched a new set of conformance tests for high-performance data center storage systems, targeting the NVMe Management Interface. A combination of the new tests and its Summit protocol analyzer and exerciser hardware will enable the testing of the NVMe-MI at future plugfests hosted by the University of New Hampshire’s InterOperability Lab, the company noted.
