The ability to test network and device features and functions is an important piece of technology development and deployment. RCR Wireless looks weekly at the test and measurement space to see what’s afoot.
—Anite says it is the first test vendor to offer 4×4 downlink (DL) MIMO testing for devices and chipsets. The testing was developed in collaboration with a major device vendor, according to Anite, which noted that 4×4 DL MIMO-capable devices “require greater antenna separation/isolation and are therefore used in devices with larger form factors such as phablets, laptops with inbuilt modems and set-top boxes, as well as in various automotive applications.”
Other recent developments in 4×4 MIMO include Agilent Technologies’ support for 4×4 MIMO uplink signal generation for testing eNodeB receivers and enabling initial testing of 8×8 MIMO.
—Tektronix has opened a new calibration and repair lab in American Fork, Utah, which is just south of Salt Lake City.
–Global calibration specialist Trescal has made two acquisitions that expand its footprint in North America. The company announced this week that it has purchased Instrument Calibration Services and Test Equipment Repair Corp., both of which are based in Atlanta, Ga. Trescal owns more than 67 calibration labs around the world.
Terms of the deals were not disclosed, but Trescal said that between them, the two companies generated about $4.2 million in sales last year and have 24 employees, including 18 engineers. Trescal noted that the acquisitions were made with the support of its majority shareholder, private investment company Ardian, which bought Trescal in mid-2013 and has since made four acquisitions to expand the company.
“The acquisition furthers our growth strategy in North America, and marks another significant step towards our goal of dominating the market within within two years,” said Guillaume Caroit, who is general secretary of Trescal. He added that the “expertise of the teams and the reputation of these companies were critical aspects of both acquisitions.”
—Texas Instruments is coordinating a third-party ecosystem for Internet of Things (IoT) cloud service providers, which will allow manufacturers to use TI technologies that have already been demonstrated to work well with cloud service offerings from the ecosystem providers. The first members of the group include 2lemetry, ARM, Arrayent, Exosite, IBM, LogMeIn, Spark and Thingsquare.
—Rohde & Schwarz held its 2014 LTE Innovation Summit this week. It provided a broad and deep view of challenges across the industry in testing and enabling new technologies, with particular focus on Voice over LTE, envelope tracking and others. Read coverage here, and get an overview of the conference by searching #LIS2014 on Twitter — while you’re there, you can follow me @khillrcr.
