Xilinx Supplying Test Kit Components

Xilinx has said that Agilent Technologies utilized its 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."

Posted to the site on 12th June 2003