In the test and measurement world this week, Keysight Technologies’ T3111S system for near-field communications conformance testing was chosen by China Telecom Corporation Test labs in Guangzhou, China, for its lab there. The system focuses on radio frequency and protocol measurements for NFC, which is a short-range wireless technology used in items such as key cards as well as in mobile devices for uses including mobile payments.
I spoke this week with Curt Schmidek, VP of marketing for LitePoint, on the topic of NFC testing. LitePoint introduced its solution for testing NFC at scale in production environments at last year’s Mobile World Congress. You can read about six key factors in NFC testing here, and watch the full interview below:
LitePoint is part of Teradyne, which recently reported its fourth-quarter results. Teradyne had revenue of $323 million for Q4 2014, consisting of $237 million from semiconductor testing, $46 million from system testing and $40 million from wireless testing. The company reported a net loss of $103.8 million for the quarter, however, which included a goodwill impairment charge for its wireless test business of $99 million.
Mark Jaiela, president and CEO of Teradyne, said the company has been seeing strong system-on-a-chip testing demand, although it expects to see some decline in demand on that side during 2015. Teradyne’s board has also approved a $500 million stock repurchasing plan.
• Huawei and China Mobile announced that they have performed the first field trial of uplink carrier aggregation, and achieved a 180% improvement in uplink speeds. Huawei said that China Mobile is already in the process of enabling downlink CA in its LTE network in Shenzen, in addition to the testing of uplink CA.
• In additional test news, Keysight launched a new reference solution for testing satellite signals, as well as a new PXIe digital stimulus/response module for RF chipset testing.
• Anritsu has posted a Q&A (pdf) on its third quarter results and its outlook, which includes softening expected in the Japanese test and measurement market and a few comments on its approach to the carrier acceptance testing market, which it has been focusing on. The company saw its orders decrease 4.2% during its most recent quarter, and while its revenues were up 1.2%, its operating profit was down by 24%. More details in its 3Q results release, available as a pdf here.
