Keysight Technologies continues to bolster its position in 5G testing as well as that of its Ixia Solutions Group in enterprise networking and security-related visibility.
In 5G, the test company gave more details this week about a recently signed agreement with Korea Telecom that came out of Mobile World Congress. The two companies have been collaborating on 5G work for a number of years, but the new memorandum of understanding reinforces the relationship and Keysight’s support of KT’s 5G trials and commercialization. This includes “development of over-the-air and mmWave beamforming calibration test methodologies that KT will use to develop relevant test procedures,” according to Keysight.
Keysight has also joined up with Tech Mahindra to “accelerate 5G device development, verification, and ultimately certification of 5G devices” by broadening on-demand access to Keysight’s network emulation solutions for 5G, with an eye toward speeding up development of 5G devices. Tech Mahindra test specialists at its labs in the U.S. and India will support the collaboration.
Meanwhile, Keysight’s Ixia Solutions Group launched a new network bypass switch, the iBypass Duo – which has two management ports for in-line and security monitoring tools and both 10G and 1G support.
Ixia also picked up a new collaboration with enterprise breach detection and analytics company Eastwind Networks, in which Ixia’s CloudLens visibility solution is paired with Eastwind’s analytics for identifying security issues for companies which utilize Amazon Web Services. The Eastwind Network Sensor for AWS is described as providing “elastic visibility and threat detection, as well as user and entity behavioral analytics to identify malicious activity, insider threats and data leakage within AWS.”
Ixia made a deal for a new authorized distributor of its products in Taiwan: Zero One Technology, which wil both sell Ixia solutions as well as provide related, integrated services.
In other test news:
–PCTel has opened up its new mobile development center in Akron, Ohio, this week. The center focuses on industrial internet of things hardware development and other enterprise-class products, and it’s led by Dr. Steve Saliga, formerly of Cisco and now VP of advanced technology for PCTel’s connected solutions group. PCTel said that the team’s design work focuses on “evolving 802.11 Wi-Fi standards, 802.11ad, Bluetooth/BLE, WiHart, 4G LTE, and 5G [New Radio].” Recent team projects include PCTel’s work on 802.11ax antennas.
–Copper Mountain Technologies launched new frequency extenders to cover frequencies between 18 to 54 GHz, aimed at support of 5G network testing. The new FET1854 extenders join an existing line-up of extenders in other frequency bands up to 100 GHz.
-The American Center for Mobility had its grand opening this week in Ypsilanti Township, Mich., for the testing of connected and autonomous vehicles. With the center anticipating a tsunami of data as part of its testing processes, part of the grand opening announcement was that Microsoft will be providing AMC with cloud resources and data infrastructure for collecting, storing and analyzing data from tests conducted there.
“Vehicles are quickly becoming data centers on wheels, and the opportunity to use the vast amounts of information generated to fuel innovation is unprecedented,” said Kevin Dallas, corporate vice president, artificial intelligence & intelligent cloud business development, Microsoft.
– Teledyne LeCroy launched a new line of WaveSurfer oscilloscopes, the WaveSurfer 3000z. They have a 10.1-inch touch screen and come in five models with bandwidths from 100 MHz to 1 GHz and sample rates up to 4 GS/s.
Teledyne LeCroy said that the new series has an “entirely new CPU engine” and more acquisition memory than its 3000 model, and depending on the options, the oscilloscopes can support the functions of a function generator, digital voltmeter, logic analyzer and protocol analyzer.
-Semiconductor test company Advantest has introduced a new, high-speed memory tester for the expanding mobile DRAM market. The first shipments are expected in the second quarter of this year.
-Semiconductor-focused Aehr Test Systems recently reported that net sales for its fiscal third quarter of 2018 were $7.1 million, up 176% from the year-ago period. Net income was $267,000, putting the company in the black compared to a loss of $2.4 million during the same period in fiscal 2017. Aehr noted this week that it has also had a large follow-on order from a wireless chipset manufacturer for its systems.
“There is a rising tide of concern in the automotive, mobile, and photonics markets, particularly focused on human safety and extended reliability testing and burning-in of devices, which Aehr Test is very well positioned to address,” said Gayn Erickson, Aehr president and CEO. “This is a key driver behind the strength and interest we continue to see from the semiconductor market for our new wafer level, singulated die, and packaged part test and burn-in solutions.”
–Spirent Communications announced a new, tiered global partner program, Spirent Pace, to expand resources, incentives and other offerings to its partners. Spirent also this week expanded performance and scale testing for the new Transport Layer Security v1.3 encryption protocol to its CyberFlood and Avalanche security assurance offerings.
“TLS v1.3 will ultimately improve security and privacy for Internet users; however, there is risk with new standards and new potential holes in customers’ security,” said David DeSanto, director of products and threat research at Spirent Communications, in a statement. He described TLS v1.3 as a “bleeding edge cryptographic standard” and said that Spirent’s new offering will help customers validate its performance and identify issues.
– PCTest is among the new members of the Wireless Innovation Forum, along with test lab company Kereval and other companies from Charter Communications to chipmaker Sequans.
-Belgian telecom company Proximus looked to Viavi Solutions for testing and monitoring of the expanding build-out of its fiber-to-the-home network.
