Agilent and Altair Semiconductor Collaborate for Interoperability Testing

Interoperability testing and validation testing will be jointly conducted by Agilent Technologies Inc. and Altair Semiconductor. The Agilent PXT wireless communications test set and N6070A-series signaling conformance test software will be used in conjunction with Altair's 4G LTE chipset for the testing. The development of LTE devices and testing solutions into new operating bands will be therefore accelerated with the joint effort.

The FourGee-3100 baseband and FourGee-6200 RFIC chipsets are included in Altair's LTE chip portfolio. LTE category 3 throughputs are supported by the FourGee-3100. Based on a proprietary, cutting-edge O2P software-defined radio processor, a 20-MHz MIMO receiver is implemented by the chip. Only a fraction of power is consumed by the processor.

Any 3GPP LTE band in the range of 700 MHz to 2700 MHz is supported by the multiband RF transceiver, FourGee-6200. Interoperability tests with top infrastructure vendors in multiple-band and duplex configurations have been completed for the chipset together with Altair's software stack.

In a release, Eran Eshed, co-founder and VP of marketing and business development at Altair Semiconductor said, "Having a prestigious test equipment vendor like Agilent on board for interoperability testing is of huge importance to Altair."

According to Eshed, it has always been a challenge to verify and certify top-edge designs. The chipset technology and the testing solutions will move forward together at an accelerated pace with this collaboration. The company’s products will be therefore brought to the market quickly and efficiently.

According to Guy Séné, VP and GM of the microwave and communications division at Agilent, the company’s on-going interoperability testing with the PXT and validation of Agilent's conformance test solutions is supported by the company’s work with Altair.

In a release, Séné said, "Altair's chipset will be used to further increase the capability of our LTE test platforms, expanding our design verification and conformance test capability into new operating bands."

The Altair chipset will be used for validation of 3GPP test cases in addition to interoperability testing. The Agilent N6070A-series Signaling Conformance Test solution will be used for running the test cases.