Agilent Takes Chip For 3G Test Equipment

US : Xilinx announced that Agilent Technologies, a global technology leader in communications, utilized Xilinx devices in the development of its latest wireless manufacturing test solution, the Agilent E5515C (8960) wireless communications test set.

The Agilent E5515C test set was developed specifically for the high-volume automated manufacturing test of wireless devices and offers the only one-box solution with the ability to adapt to current 2G and 3G formats. The advanced features of Xilinx Virtex and Spartan Series Platform field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) were key enablers allowing Agilent to add new digital cellular formats to the E5515C test set as the new digital standards were developed, dramatically shortening Agilent's time-to-market. In addition, the flexibility of the FPGAs allows wireless device manufacturers to improve time-to-market and lower test costs by upgrading their Agilent E5515C test systems via the Internet as new standards emerge.

"Using Xilinx FPGAs provided Agilent with a time-to-market advantage and reduced our overall design costs in the process," said Al Schmidt, vice president of Agilent's Wireless Division. "The flexible nature of Xilinx programmable chips provided our design team with the luxury of repeated design iterations throughout the design process - which would not be possible using standard fixed ASIC technology.

"Agilent's unique application of our FPGAs underscores our ability to improve time-to-market and reduce costs for our customer's customer," said Wim Roelandts, president and CEO at Xilinx.

About Programmable Logic Devices
Xilinx leads one of the fastest growing segments of the semiconductor industry - programmable logic devices (PLDs) with 49% market share. PLDs represent an exciting growth potential in the chip market thanks to their flexible nature and ability to change functionality even after being manufactured and delivered in the field via Internet reconfigurability. Gartner/Dataquest forecasts the PLD market to grow to $5.6 billion by 2006.

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