German test and measurement company Rohde & Schwarz said that it ended its fiscal year with “increased revenue and strong order intake.”
R&S is privately held, but the company nonetheless reports a few of its financial and operating highlights each year. For its fiscal 2021/2022 year, the company said that revenues were up to 2.53 billion euros (about $2.5 billion), or about compared to 2.28 billion (about $2.26 billion) in its previous fiscal year. The company said that each of its three divisions achieved double-digit growth, but converting orders to billable sales was “impeded by the tight supply chain situation.” Having vertically integrated plants in Germany, Czech Republic, Singapore and Malaysia helped the company stay stable, however.
Rohde & Schwarz said that it saw “strong demand for high-performance wireless testers, signal generators, spectrum analyzers and oscilloscopes” in the wireless communications and automotive technologies sectors, and that its businesses providing security scanners military communications systems and air traffic control systems also were on solid footing.
Rohde closed out June 2022 with around 13,000 employees, holding steady from last year’s number.
In other test news:
–Keysight Technologies said it is the first to get Global Certification Forum validation for a test case that combines 5G and global navigation satellite system (GNSS), or 5G Location-based Services (LBS) Assisted Galileo (A-Galileo). The test case was enabled by Keysight’s S8705A RF/RRM DVT and Conformance Toolset, the company added. The availability of a test case for 5G LBS A-Galileo will “accelerate the implementation of LBS in smartphones by enabling mobile phone vendors to verify that designs comply to the latest 3GPP specifications that support accurate location positioning,” Keysight said.
–Signals Research Group’s latest look at various aspects of 5G is out, this one focused on how 5G millimeter-wave device performance and battery drainhas improved over the past few years. New mmWave 5G devices and chipsets have made significant progress in power use and compared to earlier iterations, according to the new benchmark testing. SRG looked at the devices’ electrical current drain in relationship to bandwidth consumption for both uplink and downlink, and found a 180% improvement in current efficiency in the downlink. Full story here.
-The process of deploying a private cellular network is different than enterprise Wi-Fi, but it’s one that companies who wish to explore 4G or 5G private networks should be familiar with. Regression testing, testing of the WAN, fronthaul and backhaul and spectrum co-existence and interference mitigation are just some of the important testing aspects. Read more detail here in a piece featuring Viavi Solutions and German system integrator Mugler SE.
-Federal testing related to mobile network operators’ use of their all-important C-Band spectrum for 5G continues, with a recent testing report that seeks to answer two engineering-related questions: When or if 5G interferes with radalt receivers, what is the physical mechanism of that interference?; and two, at what distances and in what directions between radalts and 5G transmitters does that interference occur? Key takeaways available in this piece.
-Aerospace and defense company Ametek, which also has businesses including test equipment and electronic measurement, said that it has made two new acquisitions: Navitar and RTDS Technologies. The two separate purchases cost about $430 million total and bring an additional $100 million in annual sales to Ametek. Both companies will become part of Ametek’s Electronic Instruments Group. Navitar focuses on high-precision optical components and solutions for use cases including machine vision, robotics and industrial automation, while RTDS Technologies provides real-time power simulation systems used by utilities.
“These businesses nicely complement our existing capabilities and strategically expand our presence in highly attractive secular growth areas,” said David Zapico, Ametek’s chairman and CEO.
Both companies join AMETEK as part of its Electronic Instruments Group. The transactions have already closed.
