News briefs

Fresh on the heels of announcing favorable financial news, LTX (Westwood, MA) reported that Vitesse Semiconductor (Camarillo, CA) has purchased multiple LTX Fusion HFi system-on-chip testers. On May 13, LTX released its financial results for Q3 2004 (which ended April 30), reporting that its sales of $70,333,000 for the quarter were up 20% from the prior quarter's sales of $58,415,000; net income for Q3 was $4,306,000 compared to a net loss of $1,435,000 during Q2.

Five days later, the company announced its volume sale of Fusion HFi testers to Vitesse. Vitesse plans to use the systems to test high-speed devices such as Serdes, Serial-ATA, and PCI Express devices. Commenting on the purchase, Chris Gardner, VP and GM of Vitesse's Transport Products Division, said in a prepared statement, "The improved performance and accuracy of HFi allows us to better characterize our newest high-performance devices. In addition, HFi's multiple time domain capability enables us to bring complex devices with multiple buses to market more quickly and test them more effectively." www.ltx.com.

In an encouraging sign for the test industry, Agilent Technologies (Palo Alto, CA) has announced that its orders for Q2 2004 (which ended April 30) were up 24% percent over Q2 2003, and revenues were 25% ahead of last year. The company reported total orders of $1.89 billion and revenues of $1.83 billion for the quarter. In addition, Agilent announced that its GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) net earnings for the quarter were $0.21 per diluted share compared with a loss of $0.31 per share in Q2 2003.

"Agilent's businesses are clearly picking up, with virtually all of our major markets and all geographies gaining momentum," said Ned Barnholt, Agilent chairman, president, and CEO, in a prepared statement. "Orders and revenue were at their highest levels since early 2001." www.agilent.com .

The ETL Semko division of Intertek (Boxborough, MA), a provider of test, inspection, and certification services, has announced it has acquired Entela (Grand Rapids, MI), a firm that tests and certifies automotive components. Current plans call for Entela's management team to continue to run the business.

"The addition of Entela's automotive expertise to our existing electrical safety, EMC, and performance testing means that Intertek can provide faster and more cost-effective global market access to automotive components manufacturers," said Gregg Tiemann, president of Intertek, in a prepared statement. "Clients now have access to an expanded scope of services enabling them to become more effective in a global marketplace."

Intertek operates 273 laboratories and 521 offices in 100 countries. In addition to its Grand Rapids headquarters, Entela also has offices in Canada and Taiwan. www.intertek-etlsemko.com .

Teradyne (Boston, MA) and Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASE), a Taiwan-based assembly and test subcontractor, have announced an agreement that involves test-system planning for all ASE sites and includes the purchase of over 90 Teradyne test systems. The order involves Teradyne's Tiger and Catalyst test systems. The systems will be delivered to ASE's facilities over the next two years. The strategic agreement provides ASE with the test capacity and support to meet the demands of the fast growing assembly and test subcontract market.

"This agreement builds on a long working relationship, and allows ASE and Teradyne to better match our technology and capacity plans over the long term. We look forward to supporting the integration of Teradyne test solutions at ASE facilities worldwide," said Doug Elder, GM of Teradyne's Semiconductor Test Business Group, in a prepared statement. www.teradyne.com .

NPTest (San Jose, CA) has announced that Fulcrum Microsystems (Calabasas Hills, CA ) has selected NPTest's Saber engineering services division to test the PivotPoint, an SPI-4.2 switch chip aimed at applications in the networking and storage markets. Fulcrum is using the Saber to develop test programs, collect characterization data, and implement final test programs.

NPTest claims that the successful testing of PivotPoint on the NPTest platform demonstrates the commercial testability of a chip with 80% asynchronous circuits. PivotPoint contains nearly 100 pairs of LVDS interfaces (each of which can operate up to 500 MHz) combined with more than 30 million transistors in asynchronous logic blocks. www.nptest.com

Lawrence D. Maloney, publisher of Test & Measurement World, resigned his position in late May. In his two-plus years as both publisher and editorial director of the magazine, Larry successfully guided Test & Measurement World through treacherous economic times.

Soon after arriving from his previous position as publisher of Design News, Larry implemented plans for a redesign of T&MW, giving the pages a bolder look and introducing several new departments, including Tech Trends, Test Digest, and Project Profile. In addition, Larry inaugurated features such as our "On the Road" stories, in which editors visit test engineers to learn how they solve tough technical challenges. In 2003, he also initiated a successful redesign of the magazine's Web site.

Larry, who has began his career as a journalist and has served in various editorial positions, including a stint as deputy editor at U.S. News & World Report, has decided that the editorial side of the magazine business interests him more than the sales side, and, after some well-deserved time off, he'll be embarking on a career as a full-time freelance journalist in September.

Commenting on Larry's departure, Rick Nelson, T&MW's chief editor, said, "Larry has brought many reader-friendly features to Test & Measurement World, and he has guided our efforts to make the tmworld.com Web site and e-mail newsletters indispensable complements to the print magazine. We wish Larry well in his future endeavors."