San Francisco, CA. “Technology Waves in Communications—or from IoT to IoS and in between.” That was the topic of an address by Mark Pierpoint, vice president and general manager, Internet and Infrastructure, Keysight Technologies. Kicking off the core Tuesday through Thursday portion of IMS 2016 with a press conference this morning, Pierpoint outlined Keysight’s efforts to help customers get to market faster. “Today,” he said, “we are 100% focused on helping companies tackle the toughest electronic design and test issues through trusted hardware, innovative software, and our global network of industry experts.”
Pierpoint described a bimodal distribution of opportunities in the real world—arising from flexibility vs. opportunity. Initiatives like SigFox, he said, focus on low bit rate, low duty-cycle applications that can run 20 years on an AA cell. In contrast, many 5G pre-standardization efforts promise better than 10-Gb/s continuous data rates, with battery life undefined but perhaps measured in minutes.
The bimodal distribution, he said, leads to “less is more” and “more is more.” The former relies on lower frequency, bandwidth, data rate, power, and cost, while the later offers higher frequency, bandwidth, channel count, and availability.
In any event, the IoS, or Internet of Space, will have a role to play depending on bandwidth and range requirements as satellite communications plays a larger role.
Pierpoint cited several challenges on the horizon: simulation and characterization for IoT, WLAN evolution to 802.11ax, mmWave channel modeling and radio access technology (RAT) with regard to 5G rollout, 5G frequency selection, and waveform technology selection. However the evolution proceeds, he said, it would be a mistake to view mmWave technologies as simply a tenfold speedup of RF. Complications arise from issues such as path loss, which may be mitigated by high-gain directional antennas, and coexistence with existing mmWave applications.
In an effort to address the challenges ahead, Keysight announced in conjunction with Georgia Tech a plan to launch a Keysight software development center that would accelerate Keysight’s goal of becoming a software-centric solutions provider. The new facility, located in Atlanta’s mid-town district, is expected to grow to house more than 200 software developers over the next five years. Pierpoint noted that the location would be attractive to a younger generation of engineers who wish to live in an urban environment. Most Keysight (and predecessor HP and Agilent) facilities have been located in suburban areas well outside of city centers.
Also at the press conference, Keysight celebrated its 25-year relationship with Cascade Microtech. The relationship gained steam in 1991 when the HP/Keysight 4155 semiconductor parameter analyzer spurred on the development of the Cascade MicroChamber technology with guarded chucks to permit sub-10-fA current measurements.
Gregg Peters, vice president and general manager, Keysight Aerospace/Defense/Government Solutions, said, “Over the past 25 years, our teamwork became an integral part for enabling customer success in device characterization and on-wafer measurements.” Rob Selley, vice president for global sales and service for Cascade, was on hand at the press conference to second that point from his company’s perspective.
