Test and measurement company Ametek has acquired amplifier design and electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) testing company Amplifier Research.
According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Ametek paid $105 million in cash for Amplifier Research, which is based in Pennsylvania and has annual sales of about $60 million. The company’s product portfolio includes RF and microwave instrumentation amplifiers, hybrid power amplifier modules, antenna and control software used to provide high-end EMC solutions. Amplifier Research serves the defense, communications, automotive and medical markets.
“Amplifier Research is an outstanding acquisition which nicely complements our existing capabilities in the electromagnetic compatibility testing market,” said David A. Zapico, chairman and CEO of Ametek. “Their expertise and capability in amplifier design will greatly enhance our ability to provide a broader suite of solutions for attractive markets including electric vehicle testing and defense communications.”
Amplifier Research will become part of Amtek’s Electronic Instruments Group.
In other test news:
–Anritsu partnered with AnaPico AG to enable cross-instrument recording and analyzing of radio signals. Anritsu said that it is seeing “growing demand from customers need for instruments to capture RF signals of interest over the air and then play them back from vector signal generators,”or VSGs, and it now has a solution for this in the form of its Anritsu IQ Signal Master MX280005A PC application. Anritsu collaborated with AnaPico to offer a solution that relies on Anritsu’s Field Master Pro MS2090A spectrum analyzer to capture signals, at which the the IQ data file can be loaded into AnaPico’s VSG for playback of capture and analysis of RF signals up to 40 GHz.
“The seamless process of IQ data capture and playback is ideal for in depth testing of the response of receivers to a wide range of signals,” Anritsu said in a release, adding that the solution also has built-in algorithms to help find and isolate signals of interest in order to “validate the performance of receivers to real world threats,” noting that this capability is particularly important for security and defense agencies.
–Spirent Communications put together a joint networking system-on-chip (SoC) verification solution together with Cadence Design Systems. The collaboration brings Spirent’s virtual Ethernet traffic emulation and testing capabilities into the pre-silicon verification process that is supported by Cadence’s Palladium Z2 Enterprise Emulation and Protium X2 Enterprise Prototyping systems. Spirent said that it can emulate any port speed from 1G to 800G at the application level; the solution, which was jointly developed, is aimed at supporting ever-higher data bandwidths needed to verify SoC designs for data centers and other high-performance applications.
“We are pleased to work with a leading computational software vendor to bridge the gap between pre- and post-silicon validation of next-generation networking products with this highly flexible and cost-effective solution,” said Aniket Khosla, VP of product management for cloud and IP at Spirent. “Our collaboration with Cadence provides access to the latest Chip Design Verification solution to help customers identify critical problems early in the design lifecycle and accelerate time to market for the latest innovations driving the industry. It will help reduce development time, simplify testing of the complex Ethernet chipset design process, and ensure that new products perform as expected.”
–Schneider Electric this week announced a new digital building innovation lab in Montreal’s Marconi district. The 4,500-square-foot facility features a electro-mechanical lab, a “wet lab” for valve testing and 3D tech, including 3D printing of prototypes and a 3D laser scanner; all of this, Schneider said in a release, is meant to “revolutionize how intelligent edge devices are designed, tested and developed for digital building applications.”
–Pasternack has debuted a new line of low-noise 5G amplifiers in coaxial packages, with frequency range support from 10 MHz to 8 GHz. Some models have built-in heat sinks.
-The global market for various types of radio frequency test equipment was at an estimated $3.4 billion last year and expected to reach $5.6 billion by 2030, reflecting a compound annual growth rate of 6.4%, according to a new analyst report. Oscilloscopes alone are expected to grow at 6% CAGR into a $1.7 billion market by 2030, while the spectrum analyzers. In China, the RF test equipment is expected to grow at a rate of nearly 10% CAGR through 2030, to reach $1.3 billion.
–Liquid Instruments launched new software updates that boost the capabilities of its FPGA-based Moku test and measurement products.
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