News Briefs

Agilent Technologies has announced that its Vector Signal Analyzer (VSA), Signal Studio, and Mobile WiMAX Test Set products have been enhanced to facilitate testing of the WiMAX Forum’s Wave 2 system profiles; these profiles specify options such as multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO), a multi-antenna technology fundamental to Mobile WiMAX.

Agilent’s 89601A VSA and N7615B Signal Studio measurement products support physical (PHY) layer signal generation and analysis for Wave 2 system profiles, including support for matrix A and matrix B signals, HARQ bursts, and uplink sounding zones. N7615B Signal Studio also provides MIMO fading embedded in a waveform, a capability that enables testing of MIMO receivers without the added expense of fading hardware or software.

The Agilent E6651A Mobile WiMAX Test Set incorporates flexible base-station emulation, IP traffic support, and the ability to make onboard RF parametric measurements. No external equipment is required to measure UL signals. The E6615A’s Wave 2 enhancements include support for DL, STC, SM, and UL collaborative MIMO measurements. It also offers the protocols to support operating with the DUT in MIMO modes. www.agilent.com.

TUV Rheinland of North America, a supplier of testing and certification services, has been recognized by the European Commission (EC) as a Conformity Assessment Body (CAB) for the Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) Directive 2004/108/EC. The company was given the designation under the US-EU Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA) through the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). A CAB reviews a product’s documentation to ensure compliance to the EMC Directive and reports its findings to the EC.

The EMC Directive 2004/108/EC oversees the EMC compatibility of a wide range of products, including electrical and electronic appliances, systems, and installations. Effective as of July 20, the new version replaced the previous Directive 89/336/EEC. www.us.tuv.com.

JEOL USA, a manufacturer of electron microscopes and scientific instruments for nanotechnology, reports that it has completed installation and acceptance of its first thermal field emission electron microprobe in the US. The microprobe was installed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, MD.

An automated, high-throughput electron probe microanalyzer (EPMA), the JEOL JXA-8500F offers an analytical ability that surpasses that of scanning electron microscopes (SEM), according to the company. The ability to simultaneously use an energy-dispersive x-ray spectrometer (EDS) and up to five wavelength-dispersive x-ray spectrometers (WDS) increases speed for elemental analysis of nanometric sample areas. All but a few of the elements on the periodic table can be analyzed.

The JXA-8500F uses a Schottky-type field-emission gun. The probe diameter is 1/10th the size of conventional probes.

“This new FE gun allows us to analyze extremely small features by operating at low kilovolt and high beam currents,” said Charles Nielsen, VP of JEOL USA. “The analytical ability of this instrument makes it possible to measure features and map them with a resolution approaching one hundred nanometers.” www.jeolusa.com.

EADS North America Defense Test and Services of Irvine, CA, now handles US sales and service for test equipment from Tabor Electronics. Tabor, based in Israel, manufactures pulse, function, and arbitrary waveform generators. EADS North America Defense is the former Racal Instruments, a manufacturer of PXI and VXI instrument cards and custom test systems. www.eads-nadefense.com; www.taborelec.com.

The new LabView 8.5 adds several features that improve throughput in test applications. Taking advantage of multicore processors, LabView’s multithreading ability automatically assigns program threads to processor cores. Previous versions let you perform up to four threads on single-core processors. Now, you can run four threads on each processor core.

LabView’s Real-Time and FPGA add-ons also let you take advantage of multiple processors. Because real-time and FPGA applications don’t run under Windows, the add-ons let you assign threads to processor cores, so you can build applications where one core acquires data and another performs analysis, filtering, signal processing, or datalogging. By assigning code to a specific processor core, you can run even more tasks in parallel. If you develop code for embedded systems, you can download multithreaded applications to an FPGA and run them independently of a PC.

One new module lets you build applications by using state charts that define user interfaces, communications protocols, controls, and other functions. State charts contain underlying LabView code that you can run or edit, but they provide a higher level of abstraction to your programs than writing your own code.

Base price: $1199, National Instruments, www.ni.com/labview.

Matrox Imaging has announced the Matrox Iris E-Series with Design Assistant, a smart camera with an integrated development environment (IDE). With the Matrox Design Assistant environment’s intuitive interface, users create a flow chart of an application that instructs the Matrox Iris E-Series camera to capture, process (analyze, identify, locate, measure, and read), and remotely display images and to communicate with external devices.

The development environment is fully self-contained for application development and deployment, and an integrated HTML editor and layout tool allows users to create custom Web-based views so operators can monitor applications.

The Matrox Iris E-Series smart camera includes an embedded Intel Ultra Low Power (ULP) Celeron processor, and it runs the Windows CE .NET real-time operating system. It is available as a single-body or remote-head-plus-processor design.

Base price: Iris E-Series camera with Design Assistant software—$2995. Matrox Imaging, www.matrox.com/imaging.

International Test Conference (ITC), October 23–25, Santa Clara, CA. Sponsored by IEEE. www.itctestweek.org.

Automotive Testing Expo North America, October 24–26, Detroit, MI. Sponsored by Automotive Testing Technology International magazine. www.testing-expo.com/usa.

Vision, November 6–8, Stuttgart, Germany. Produced by Messe Stuttgart. www.vision-messe.de.

Productronica, November 13–16, Munich, Germany. Produced by Messe München. www.global-electronics.net/id/21310.

To learn about other conferences, courses, and calls for papers, visit www.tmworld.com/events.