SANTA CLARA, Calif., June 21, 2010 — Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A) today announced the addition of two source measure units (SMUs) to its N6700 Series Modular Power Systems — the N6781A 2-quadrant source measure unit for battery drain analysis and the N6782A 2-quadrant source measure unit for functional test.

The new SMUs offer advanced sourcing and measurement capabilities required for the testing challenges associated with battery-powered devices and their components. Agilent also introduced new software and updates for its DC power analyzer mainframe.

“In the battery-powered device market, engineers have employed advanced power management methods in order to maximize battery life,” said Gary Whitman, vice president and general manager of Agilent’s System Products Division. “Until today, SMUs lacked the capabilities necessary to adequately measure the dynamic currents associated with these methods. Our new N6781A and N6782A SMUs overcome the shortcomings of today’s SMUs with features designed specifically for this rapidly growing market.”

The N6781A and N6782A eliminate the challenges of measuring dynamic currents with a feature called seamless measurement ranging. With seamless measurement ranging, engineers can precisely measure dynamic currents without any glitches or disruptions to the measurement. As the current drawn by the device under test (DUT) changes, the SMU automatically detects the change and switches to the current measurement range that will return the most precise measurement.

When combined with the SMU’s built-in 18-bit digitizer, seamless measurement ranging enables unprecedented effective vertical resolution of 28-bits. This provides unrivaled productivity gains and insights into power consumption by enabling engineers to see the complete current waveform they have never seen before, from nano-amps to amps, in one pass and one picture. 

The N6781 2-quadrant source measure unit for battery drain analysis, unlike any other product available today, offers the features required to accurately capture the power consumption of portable, battery-powered devices. When used with the new Agilent 14585A software, the N6781A becomes an even more powerful battery drain analysis solution offering greater measurement insight. The N6781A is ideal for testing devices such as e-Book readers, MP3 players, mobile phones and pacemakers. The N6781A’s seamless measurement ranging, programmable output resistance and auxiliary DVM, combine to be the best set of advanced features on the market for battery drain analysis.

The N6782A 2-quadrant source measure unit for functional test can modulate its output up to 100 kHz and provides 2-quadrant operation. This makes the SMU a perfect fit for advanced functional test for a variety of devices including DC/DC converters, power management units, power amplifiers and power management ICs. The input stage of the DUT can be stimulated by the fast sourcing and waveform capabilities. The output stage can be loaded down and measured with the electronic load capabilities of the N6782A. Being able to stimulate the input of a DUT, as well as load down the output, provides a total test solution.

The N6781A and N6782A SMUs also feature:

• glitch-free sourcing and measurement for changing output and measurement ranges;
• 2-quadrant operation allowing the SMU to perform as a voltage or current source or as a constant-voltage or constant-current electronic load;
• four current measurement ranges to precisely capture the current levels of the DUT during different modes of operation;
• excellent transient response for keeping the voltage or current stable during high-speed load changes;
•  fast modulation of DC for creating waveforms up to 100 kHz to stimulate or load down the DUT; and
• high-speed digitized measurements for capturing and viewing the power consumption of the DUT every five microseconds with its built-in 200 kHz digitizer.
• The Agilent 14585A control and analysis software for the N6705 DC power analyzer enhances the user experience of the N6705 mainframe by offering advanced functionality via PC control including:
• simultaneous control and analysis of data from up to four N6705 mainframes (16 power supplies);
• enhanced control and analysis of data using familiar PC controls and a large display;
• easy creation of complex waveforms to stimulate or load down a DUT by inputting a formula, choosing from built-in or importing waveform data;
• data logging of measurements directly to the PC; and
• performing statistical analysis of power consumption.

 The new SMUs are a part of the N6700 modular power system, which consists of the N6700 low-profile mainframes for ATE and the N6705 DC power analyzer mainframe for R&D. The product family has four mainframes and 24 DC power modules, providing a complete spectrum of solutions, from R&D through design validation and manufacturing. The updated DC power analyzer, the N6705B, was redesigned to fully support the new SMU modules, including modules over 20 amps. The N6705B’s internal memory has been upgraded to 1 GB.

U.S. Pricing and Availability

The two new SMU modules, updated mainframe, and new control and analysis software, are available for immediate purchase. Orders for the updated N6705B mainframe as well as the 14585A software will begin shipping in June. Orders for the new N6781A and N6782A 2-Quadrant SMUs will begin shipping in August. The pricing is as follows:

• the N6782A is $4,230;
• the N6705B is $6,900; and
• a license for the 14585A software is $1,240.

Additional Information

• For the Agilent N6781A and N6782A SMUs, go to www.agilent.com/find/n6780.
• For a video describing seamless measurement ranging, go to www.agilent.com/find/n6780_video.
• For the N6705B, go to www.agilent.com/find/n6705.
• To learn more about, or download the 14585A control and analysis software for the DC power analyzer, go towww.agilent.com/find/14585.
• For high-resolution product images, go towww.agilent.com/find/n6705_images.
• A backgrounder on emerging measurement requirements of battery-powered devices is available at www.agilent.com/find/smu_backgrounder

About Agilent Technologies

Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A) is the world’s premier measurement company and a technology leader in chemical analysis, life sciences, electronics and communications. The company’s 19,000 employees serve customers in more than 110 countries. Agilent had net revenues of $4.5 billion in fiscal 2009. Information about Agilent is available on the Web at www.agilent.com.

Oxford, UK, 22 June 2010 – RS Components is adding more than 150 products to its FPGA portfolio for mainstream industrial, scientific and medical applications, providing more options for system-on-chip designers seeking fast, convenient access to established, price-competitive device families and supporting development tools.

For RS, Paul Webster, Head of Product Management, Electronics said: “Today’s mid-range FPGAs and highly-featured CPLDs help designers meet aggressive cost and power targets, as well as speeding up time to market and increasing design agility. They are often chosen in preference to a microcontroller or ASIC-based design in projects where a variety of sensing, networking, signal processing, Gigabit-I/O and general-purpose capabilities are required”.

The broad range of devices now available from RS Components includes Altera’s APEX, Cyclone®, FLEX® and Stratix® architectures including APEX 20K, Cyclone II, Cyclone III and Stratix II families. Xilinx device families include CoolRunner™-II, Virtex®-4, Virtex-5 and multiple Spartan® families including Spartan 3E/3A/3AN and Spartan 3A DSP. A dramatically extended portfolio of devices from Lattice Semiconductor will also be announced shortly.

“The ever-increasing choice of competitively priced FPGAs targeting mainstream industrial applications is an extremely important trend, often overshadowed by news of leading-edge innovations,” continued Webster. “As the leading European distributor offering one-stop-shop catalogue facilities, we provide the easiest possible access to this technology, including convenient, rapid delivery free of restrictions such as minimum order quantities.”

Supporting the company’s strategy offering convenient access to low-cost, low-power custom-programmable design is a comprehensive range of development boards and kits. These enable designers to familiarise themselves with device features and design techniques and take advantage of application examples and reference designs that help accelerate project completion.

Further information about FPGAs and CPLDs from RS Components, and direct access to online ordering, can be found at www.rswww.com/electronics.

About RS Components

RS Components is the trading brand of Electrocomponents plc, one of the largest global catalogue and web-based distributor of Electronic, Electro-mechanical and Industrial components. The Group serves nearly 1.6 million customers worldwide. Through operations in 27 countries and 17 warehouses, RS distributes 500,000 products from over 2,500 suppliers. The Group has an annual turnover of over £974 million and is listed on the London Stock Exchange. For more details on the Group please visit the corporate website (www.electrocomponents.com).

SAN JOSE, Calif., June 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Expanding its FPGA solutions for the surveillance market, Altera Corporation (NASDAQ:ALTR) announced today the industry’s first high-definition (HD), surveillance internet protocol (IP) camera reference design on a single FPGA. This unique solution features Altera’s low-cost Cyclone® III or Cyclone IV FPGAs and intellectual property from Eyelytics and Apical supporting AltaSens’ 1080p60 A3372E3-4T and Aptina’s 720p60 MT9M033 HD Wide Dynamic Range (WDR) CMOS image sensors. The all-in-one solution offers surveillance equipment manufacturers the ability to reduce board space, lower power consumption, increase flexibility and reduce development time compared to previous architectures using traditional digital signal processors and ASSPs.

Traditional digital signal processors and ASSPs don’t have the processing power required to accept the large bandwidth of data from 1080p and 720p WDR CMOS sensors (for instance, a full HD raster is 2200×1125 pixels x 16+ bits per pixel x 60 frames per second, resulting in >2 Gbps bandwidth). Altera’s Cyclone series FPGAs deliver the bandwidth and processing performance needed, handling large amounts of data generated by today’s HD WDR CMOS image sensors. In previous designs, HD WDR camera systems required FPGAs to perform the “front end” data processing while a digital signal processor or an ASSP handled the “back end” video encoding. Now, all of these chips can be replaced by a single Altera® FPGA.

The functions of Altera’s HD surveillance IP camera reference design include:

• Apical’s ISP incorporating best-in-class WDR processing “iridix” together with advanced temporal and spatial noise reduction
• Apical’s “checkerboard demosaic” core for the Altasens A3372E3-4T WDR mode
• “3A” functions, such as auto exposure and auto white balance implemented in software on Altera’s Nios® II embedded soft core processor
• Eyelytics’ H.264 video encoder, capable of 720-line progressive 30 frames-per-second encoding or 1080-line progressive 15 frames-per-second encoding in main profile
• Altera’s triple-speed Ethernet MAC intellectual property core

By eliminating the need for digital signal processors or ASSPs and combining all of these functions into one Altera FPGA, designers can take advantage of the cost and power savings with reduced board space. Altera’s single-chip solution reduces power consumption by more than 50 percent compared to previous designs.

The bundling of a comprehensive list of intellectual property in this reference design gives designers a head start in camera development, shortening development time by as much as one year. All camera designers have to do is customize the FPGA with their own specific features, such as adding their own software for motion detection, and pan, tilt and zoom control.

“Much like the video display industry, our surveillance customers expect high-quality video images,” said Michael Samuelian, director of the industrial and automotive business unit at Altera. “Altera is taking surveillance another step further by delivering a complete single-chip solution that not only addresses the trends from standard definition to high definition, standard CMOS sensors to WDR CMOS sensors, but makes it more cost effective for surveillance-camera designers to produce high-resolution images over an internet protocol network.”

Availability

To learn more about Altera’s single-chip HD IP camera reference design that’s available now, visit www.altera.com/pr/surveillance2.

About Altera

Altera programmable solutions enable system and semiconductor companies to rapidly and cost-effectively innovate, differentiate and win in their markets. Find out more about Altera’s FPGA, CPLD and ASIC devices at www.altera.com. Follow Altera via Facebook, RSS and Twitter.