As hybrid work and hybrid learning become the new normal, Keysight Technologies this week highlighted two of its initiatives in support of remote learning: One for professional engineers, and one that enables university labs to support remote laboratory access.
Keysight University is the company’s interactive online platform for engineers to learn about test and measurement fundamentals, engineering design tips and best practices in their industries and to generally keep pace with technology changes in a dynamic industry. Keysight said that the new platform includes content on tackling engineering challenges and approaches to precision digital and radio frequency measurement, as well as industry standards, software test automation, IoT and more topics. The company said that the more than 130 courses available were all developed and published under remote-work conditions. As of September 2021, Keysight said, more 32,000 engineers around the world have registered for Keysight University and enrolled in more than 81,000 courses.
“Keysight is pleased by the growing number of customers from industry-leading companies, as well as educators and students from global universities, leveraging the learning platform to support their professional development,” said Jeff Harris, VP of corporate and portfolio marketing at Keysight Technologies. “We are committed to supporting engineering education for customers, students, educators and lifelong learners for years to come.”
In addition, Keysight also said this week that it has a new remote access lab solution designed to support remote learning at the university level. “Hybrid learning in education is now widely accepted, creating a strong need for remote solutions to supplement in-class learning,” Keysight said in a release, adding that its solution enables students to remotely access a lab set-up and perform lab work through a web browser.
“Keysight’s remote access lab solution accelerates the shift from traditional in-building learning to hybrid learning, where virtual classes are offered remotely on digital platforms,” said Boon Juan Tan, VP and GM of Keysight’s general electronics measurement business. “Keysight’s new solution enables our customers to take remote teaching-learning to the next level of digital transformation, allowing students to move from traditional teaching and simulations to real-world learning experience remotely.”
In other test news:
–PCTel has launched a new 5G network scanning receiver, the Gflex, which will be available to ship before the end of the year. The company says that Gflex is more powerful, portable and flexible than other 5G and millimeter-wave-capable scanners already on the market and says that its single, compact unit supports every 5G band that is currently defined by 3GPP Rel. 17, and the first one capable of measuring the full 100-megahertz 5G bandwidth. According to PCTel, the scanner measures up to 120 5G channels simultaneously and is able to test 4G and 5G concurrently “with zero performance degradation,” and it also has an expanded frequency range (10 MHz-8 GHz, 24-48 GHz).
“Gflex is a true game-changer for PCTEL and our customers. It is a next-generation platform with advanced capabilities to support the complex requirements of testing 5G and legacy technologies all in one scanning receiver. The Gflex is also a future-proof solution that will play a key role in the success of the next phase of 5G, including in-building deployments, Open RAN architectures, and IoT applications,” said David Neumann, PCTEL’s CEO. “Additionally, the Gflex platform will enable PCTEL to serve a broader segment of the government market with our test and measurement solutions.”
– Tektronix has released its new KTE v7.1 software for Keithley’s S530 series parametric test system for semiconductor chip manufacturing. Tek says that the new software improves test times by more than 10% compared to KTE V5.8 — a particularly valuable feature right now, when a global shortage of chips means that producing chips faster is an important goal.
“Today’s emerging analog, wide bandgap (SiC and GaN), and power semiconductor technologies require parametric testing that maximizes measurement performance, addresses a wide product mix, and minimizes cost,” said Peter Griffiths, general manager of systems and software at Tektronix. “Our customers, including the worlds’ largest chip manufacturers, will enjoy the enhancements of KTE V7.1 that will enable engineers to continue to design innovations at unprecedented pace to meet demands of the changing markets.”
–Keysight Technologies said that Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer NIO will be using the test company’s 5G and cellular vehicle-to-everything solutions to verify connectivity as the company develops premium EVs for the Chinese market.
–Viavi Solutions has a new, ruggedized LTE-capable radio tester, the CX300 ComXpert, aimed at testing both radio and broadband network infrastructure, particularly for mission-critical private networks. Viavi said the new tool has a frequency range of up 6 GHz and supports advanced frequency, power and modulation analysis for analog and digital land mobile radio (LMR) and professional mobile radio (PMR) protocols, as well as private LTE networks.
–Teledyne LeCroy has a new USB exerciser option available that it says is the first SuperSpeed USB 20 Gb/s exerciser to support end-to-end testing for 20 Gb/s systems and devices. In addition, the company also announced this week that it is now offering availability of its PCI Express 5.0 M.2 interposer, which can be used in conjunctions with its PCIe 5.0 Summit Protocol Analyzer to capture and analyze PCIe 5.0 traffic from M.2 form factor expansion cards or drives. Finally, Teledyne LeCroy also said that Credo, which provides high-speed interconnect solutions for data centers, will be using its SierraNet M648 Network and Fabric test platform for testing their designs and validating their evolving Digital Signal Processing (DSP) devices for 50Gb to 400Gb Ethernet.
