Electronics Automation

Agilent Technologies has won a 2007 DesignVision Award in the test and measurement category for its J-BERT N4903A.

Agilent Technologies has won a 2007 DesignVision Award in the test and measurement category for its J-BERT N4903A, a high-performance serial bit-error-rate tester with an industry-first built-in, compliant and tunable clock data recovery (CDR). The International Engineering Consortium (IEC), which presents the DesignVision Awards, acknowledges individuals and companies that offer innovative and unique applications, products, technologies and services of impact to the semiconductor industry. IEC President John Janowiak commented: 'Our DesignVision Awards honour those catalyzing positive change in high-technology, business and academia, completely in line with the IEC's mission'.

'We are delighted to recognise the DesignVision finalists and share the best design advancements and innovators with the entire industry'.

The J-BERT N4903A is the only complete jitter tolerance test solution.

It provides integrated and calibrated jitter sources for stressed eye testing of gigabit receivers.

The new compliant and tunable CDR is also integrated into the J-BERT box.

This enables engineers in characterisation and validation labs to get precise jitter budget results for clock-less devices.

Engineers save test setup time by using J-BERT's new library of compliant CDR settings for many popular standards, such as PCI Express, Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA), Fibre Channel, fully buffered DIMM, Common Electrical interface (CEI), 10Gbit/s Ethernet and XFP/XFI.

'We are pleased to be honoured by the IEC for the J-BERT N4903A with CDR', said Sigi Gross, Vice President and General Manager of Agilent's Digital Verification Solutions Division.

Exfo Electro-Optical Engineering has a new Ethernet test module, the FTB-8510B Packet Blazer, for advanced Ethernet and higher-layer test applications.

Exfo Electro-Optical Engineering has a new Ethernet test module, the FTB-8510B Packet Blazer, for advanced Ethernet and higher-layer test applications. Building on the strong technical base of its predecessor, the FTB-8510, this new module enhances Exfo's Ethernet testing capabilities and provides support for the growing demand in higher-layer protocol testing and service validation. Among its many enhancements, the FTB-8510B delivers wire-speed transmission control protocol (TCP) throughput measurements, adding key test metrics for carrier-grade Ethernet network performance validation.

This new feature allows customers to further qualify their service-level agreements (SLAs) by providing performance indicators relevant to the transmission of application data over a reliable TCP connection.

The FTB-8510B Packet Blazer now supports standardised 100Mbit/s optical Ethernet connections, while continuing to offer the full range of electrical 10/100/1000Mbit/s and 1000Mbit/s optical/physical interfaces - all within the same test module.

With 100Mbit/s optical interfaces at the heart of active Ethernet broadband access deployments worldwide, the FTB-8510B is the ideal product to address active Ethernet link performance validation.

'Exfo's innovative TCP throughput measurement feature on the new FTB-8510B Packet Blazer represents an industry first in the portable test equipment market', said Etienne Gagnon, Exfo's Vice-President of Protocol and Optical Product Management.

'It provides our customers with unmatched capabilities to validate the application performance of their networks'.

'Once again, Exfo has demonstrated its full commitment to the rapidly evolving Ethernet market by adding key features to its technology- leading Packet Blazer test family'.

The FTB-8510B Packet Blazer is available on the FTB-200 Compact Platform and the FTB-400 Universal Test System for field-testing and central office applications.

Its counterpart, the IQS-8510B can be hosted inside the IQS-500 Intelligent Test System for manufacturing and R and D test applications.

At 3GSM 2007, Anritsu will demonstrate a portfolio of solutions confirming a roadmap which sets the pace which will enable emerging technologies.

At 3GSM 2007, Anritsu will demonstrate a portfolio of solutions confirming a roadmap which sets the pace which will enable emerging technologies such as long term evolution and next generation networks. 3GSM will also see Anritsu announce its continued leadership in providing HSUPA protocol test cases approved by the GCF which follows the submission of the first 3GPP HSUPA conformance test case in September 2006. Anritsu's strong involvement in standards development and world leading solutions for conformance test allows it to offer solutions for later stages of the lifecycle.

For example, Anritsu is actively testing 4G networks Anritsu will showcase leading edge solutions for the mobile communications market covering development, verification, production, installation and maintenance as well as end-to-end quality test and monitoring and service quality optimisation.

These cover all wireless and converged networks and services and will include HSUPA, HSDPA, WiMAX and MBMS solutions for user equipment and infrastructure manufacturers.

Building on its acquisition of NetTest, Anritsu has developed OSS service assurance and service optimisation solutions key to improving service quality, revenue and profitability for mobile operators.

Our Service Assurance portfolio includes solutions for GSM,/GPRS, UMTS/HSPA, VoIP, IMS and IPTV networks and services.

New products and key technology developments showcased at 3GSM will include the following.

Anritsu's MD8480C signalling simulator offers HSPA with full rate HSUPA 5.7Mbit/s and HSDPA 14.4Mbit/s, R99 and intra-system handover capabilities.

Anritsu will launch HSPA on its MD8470A with full rate HSUPA and HSDPA functionality, adding throughput measurement capability for analysis of mobile application efficiency.

A key part of Anritsu's OSS portfolio, MasterClaw increases revenue and reduces operational expense by enabling faster resolution of network and service issues, promoting customer retention and usage and improving operational efficiency.

A nonintrusive monitoring system providing full end-to-end monitoring of converged networks, MasterClaw is the leading service and network monitoring system for GSM/GPRS, UMTS/HSPA, SS7, VoIP, IMS and IPTV networks.

3GSM will see MasterClaw showcasing the company's newest mobile broadband Service Assurance solutions, including a new service management application and the latest release of Traffic Observer, a real-time application for NOC centre operations purposes.

Visitors will also see the new IMS deployment and troubleshooting applications, and also our latest end-to-end HSPA monitoring solutions.

NetClaw is a key solution for enabling rapid network fault restoration, improving service quality and directly impacting service turn-up and pay-back.

NetClaw, an advanced network and service performance analyser is designed to quickly provision, troubleshoot and optimise existing and emerging services across GSM/GPRS, UMTS/HSPA, SS7, VoIP, IMS and IPTV domains.

With advanced applications for service testing, network monitoring, and data acquisition for next-generation networks in a single box, NetClaw is a scalable and easy-to-use solution for remote and local operation across fixed and mobile domains.

NetClaw is being shown live at 3GSM and we are featuring our new MMS and HSDPA applications.

Radio infrastructure test solutions reduce capex and improve service roll-out.

Anritsu's radio infrastructure test solutions reduce capex and improve service roll-out, raising operational efficiency.

The range of solutions on show at 3GSM includes the BTS Master handheld basestation analyser (MT8222A), a true one-stop solution for wireless field technicians working with GSM/GPRS/Edge/WCDMA/HSPSA).

Other solutions include the MS8911B digital broadcast field analyser, the only complete handheld test tool for DVB-T and DVB-H and WCDMA/HSPA/GSM area scanners/area testers for area coverage measurement.

Stand-alone bit error tester provides unframed high speed PRBS, serial binary output ranging from T1 to STM-1 rates.

The Technisys PN 701182-1 bit error tester is a stand-alone device designed to provide unframed high speed PRBS, serial binary output ranging from T1 to STM-1 rates. Outputs can be encoded with applicable zero suppression techniques. Signal levels include differential and single ended AMI, CMI, ECL, PECL, RS422 and LVDS levels for copper interface and STM-1 (OC3) fibre optic interface.

All electrical I/O is through rear panel concentric twinaxial connectors or industry standard BNC connectors.

NRZ interfaces are all differential pairs.

Fibre optic l/O is through LC connectors and a SFP transceiver.

The SFP I/O can be electrical, if Infiniband or Fibre Channel device is installed.

The unit pricing for these is at under US $5000 with significant discount for quantity orders.

Agilent's U1250A Series handheld digital multimeters have been named in EDN magazine's list of the Hot 100 Products.

Agilent's U1250A Series handheld digital multimeters have been named in EDN magazine's list of the Hot 100 Products of 2006. This list recognises the most innovative and significant new products built by and for electronics engineers in 2006. 'Agilent is honoured to receive this prestigious recognition from EDN', said Ee Huei Sin, Vice President and General Manager of Agilent's Basic Instruments Division.

'We view this as an acknowledgment of our commitment to provide engineers with affordable test-and-measurement solutions that deliver uncompromising measurement integrity'.

Designed for cost-sensitive engineers and technicians on the go, the U1250A Series includes two models that provide 4.5-digit resolution with +/-50,000 counts full-scale on a dual display.

Basic error limits are as low as 0.025%, enabling simultaneous, accurate measurements and providing the flexibility to perform both quick validation or tolerance checks and marginal-failure troubleshooting.

In addition to the basic measurement functions, the models come with capabilities such as automated data-logging with the optional PC interface cable, 20MHz frequency counter, and programmable square-wave generator and temperature measurement.

Enclosed in a robust package with shock-absorbing overmould, both models are Category III 1000V-rated and operate over a temperature range of -20 to +55C.