News Briefs

Johnstech International has announced that King Tiger Technology has chosen to use Johnstech Edge 400a test contactors on King Tiger’s new KT-3 testers for testing DDR3, DIMM, and SODIMM memories. The companies highlighted their alliance at the Intel Developer Forum in August and at Semicon Taiwan in September.

The Edge 400a test contactors, released in July 2007, are designed to handle low-voltage (1.8-V and 1.5-V) high-speed DDR3 memory modules. The technology combines a modular design for easier component configuration and replacement and an improved warped-module-handling capability. To meet multisite requirements, standard and custom designs are available for 8, 16, 32, and 64 parallel test options. The Edge 400a contactors are also used in DIMM, DDR-DDR5, and PCI/PCI Express applications.

King Tiger’s KT-3 tester offers advanced programming features and high-frequency testing for DDR2/DDR3 devices and modules; it includes the firm’s behavioral test technology, which enables test engineers to use actual memory-device targets—such as PCs—as test-pattern-generation sources, thus more closely replicating real-world test conditions, according to the company. www.johnstech.com; www.kingtigertech.com.

The IEEE and the IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) have agreed to extend their existing cooperation agreement to include a procedure for the joint, parallel development of projects in both organizations that could lead to IEC/IEEE international standards. The agreement is an addendum to the original IEC-IEEE Dual Logo Agreement, signed in October 2002, that described a procedure for the submission of IEEE standards to the IEC for approval.

Under the new agreement, the two organizations may jointly develop standards by consulting to establish the need for new standards projects, initiating a joint development project, preparing and circulating draft standards, and voting to approve those standards. The agreement also includes processes for maintenance of approved standards to keep them up to date, as well as details on publication, copyright, and sales.

“This new procedure will allow both IEEE working groups and IEC Technical Committees to jointly develop standards in the same field while sharing information and development from all parties,” said Terry deCourcelle, director of the IEEE-SA Governance & International Standards Programs. “This type of international cooperation is critical for the development of future standards that will be accepted by the worldwide technical community.” www.ieee.org; www.iec.ch.

Rohde & Schwarz recently announced that the 7 layers test lab in Irvine, CA, has upgraded its WCDMA test equipment from Rohde & Schwarz and will now have the ability to perform HSUPA (high-speed uplink packet access) tests. 7 layers operates independent test and service centers in Germany, Asia, and the US for wireless communications.

The companies claim that with the new capabilities, 7 layers has become the first independent lab in North America that can run required HSUPA test cases. The 7 layers group has already gained experience with HSUPA testing and certification at its laboratory in Germany.

“In order to make 7 layers Inc. capable to offer these new services we will upgrade their existing Rohde & Schwarz test equipment, the R&S CRTU-W, R&S TS8950W, and R&S CRTU-RRM system,” said Michael Gieselman, US Western Region sales manager for Rohde & Schwarz.

The R&S CRTU-W is a signaling protocol tester for WCDMA and dual-mode mobile phones that supports HSUPA. The R&S TS8950W performs transmitter, receiver, and performance tests according to the 3GPP test specification TS 34.121. The R&S CRTU-RRM performs 3G/UMTS radio resource management tests. www.rohde-schwarz.com/us; www.7layers.com.

The WaveAce series of DSOs (digital storage oscilloscopes) from LeCroy takes aim at the Tektronix TDS1000B/2000B and the Agilent DSO3000A with six 2-channel models from 60 MHz to 300 MHz. All models feature color displays and memory depth of 4 ksamples/channel (WaveAce 100, two models) or 8 ksamples/channel (WaveAce 200/300, four models).

To help you view and analyze waveforms, the WaveAce series let you zoom in by pressing the time/div button. Once you’ve captured a waveform, you can use the 32 measurement functions, which include phase delay, timing, addition, subtraction, and fast Fourier transforms, and you can also perform mask pass/fail testing. Digital filters include low pass, high pass, band pass, and band stop. A wave-sequence recorder lets you view up to 2500 screens for later replay. In addition, the WaveAce can store up to 20 waveforms and setups in nonvolatile memory.

Acquisition modes include real time, equivalent time, averaging, and peak detect. Sample rates range from 250 Msamples/s to 2 Gsamples/s. All models in the series include USB and RS-232 interfaces and PC software.

Price range: $950 to $2290. LeCroy, www.lecroy.com.

Sensoray has extended its line of OEM video-capture cards with the release of the Model 817 PCI Express JPEG frame grabber. The PCI Express x1 card captures 16 separate channels of compressed JPEG or uncompressed bit maps at 480 total fps. To provide capture flexibility; the board permits all capture parameters to be set independently for each capture channel. The Model 817 supports x1 or wider (x4, x8, x16) PCI Express slots.

An internal 16x4 analog cross-point video switch can route any combination of four input channels to external video monitors. Each of the four video outputs can be individually turned on or off, allowing the outputs of multiple Model 817 frame grabbers to reach the same monitor. The Model 817 contains four identical VCPUs (video capture and processing units), each of which handles four input video channels. Each VCPU employs a four-channel video decoder to convert analog video into digital. A DSP (digital signal processor) captures digitized video and handles processing tasks such as frame decimation, caption overlay, JPEG compression, and status reporting. A software development kit for the Model 817 includes drivers and demo applications for both Windows and Linux operating systems.

Base price: $705 each in OEM quantities. Sensoray, www.sensoray.com.

Vision 2008, November 4–6, Stuttgart, Germany. Produced by Messe Stuttgart. www.messe-stuttgart.de.

Electronica, November 11–14, Munich, Germany. Produced by Messe München. www.electronica.de.

AeroTest America, November 18–20, Ft. Worth, TX. Produced by Leading Edge Events. www.aerotestamerica.com.

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