With a 79-year history, this company is the unsung hero behind 5G

Latest update time：2021-09-06 23:03

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Reports on the 5G progress of major chip and terminal manufacturers are constantly released through MWC activities. Among them, in addition to the names of major chip and terminal manufacturers, we noticed that the name that appeared most often was Keysight Technologies.

So what role does Keysight Technologies play in 5G technology and what work has it done?

During the Keysight Technology Thanksgiving Month held on March 1, the author interviewed Mr. Yan Zhongyi, Global Vice President and General Manager of Greater China, Mr. Zheng Jifeng, General Manager of Greater China Market, Mr. Du Jiwei, Market Manager of Internet Infrastructure Test Solutions in Greater China, and Mr. Zhu Huapeng, Market Manager of Oscilloscopes. The author gained an in-depth understanding of Keysight's role in the development of 5G and its investment in China.

From HP to Keysight Technologies, 79 years of heritage

Keysight Technologies' history can be traced back to Hewlett-Packard (HP, founded in 1939), one of the origins of Silicon Valley. HP's first business unit was the Electronic Test and Measurement Division.

In 1999, due to the growing differences between test and measurement technology and computer technology, HP was split into two groups, namely HP and Agilent. HP Group's business mainly focused on products such as computers and printers, while Agilent's main business was test and measurement.

In 2014, Agilent was split again. The company that inherited the Agilent name mainly engaged in chemical and life science instruments and equipment, and the electronic test and measurement business was split into Keysight Technologies, which was listed on the New York Stock Exchange as a new independent company on the morning of November 3rd, local time in the United States.

In 2014, Keysight Technologies went public as an independent company.

Ron Nersesian, president and CEO of Keysight Technologies, once explained the name: "Keysight Technologies reflects our rich heritage, inheriting the integrity and innovation of the 'HP Way' and representing Agilent's world-leading measurement business. Since its inception, Keysight Technologies has had many 'industry firsts', which can be traced back to the beginning of Silicon Valley. We will do our best to help customers achieve more 'industry firsts', open up new measurement horizons for customers, and help them promote the next generation of technology to all parts of the world."

Mr. Yan Zhongyi, Global Vice President and General Manager of Greater China, said, "The Chinese character 'shi' in Keysight's name is composed of 'ri' and 'zheng' in ancient Chinese. The Shuowen Jiezi says, 'taking the sun as the standard is called shi'. 'Ri' refers to the sun, and 'zheng' refers to 'standard, benchmark', which means 'taking the sun at the summer solstice as the benchmark point in space', which is extended to 'correctness, fact'. Keysight's Thanksgiving Month activities reflect the sharing and interaction after the continuous exploration of the essential laws and benchmarks of measurement technology."

Mr. Yan Zhongyi, Global Vice President and General Manager of Keysight Technologies Greater China

5G testing requires instrumentation first

As a manufacturer behind the 5G trial, Keysight Technologies was one of the first to start research and development and technology reserves.

As early as 2011, when 5G was just being proposed around the world, Samsung announced that it would verify 5G speeds in the 28GHz millimeter wave frequency band, and Keysight Technologies (then Agilent)'s measurement solutions were used in it.

Now, although 5G technology is very popular, it is still far from mature in the market.

Mr. Zheng Jifeng, General Manager of Greater China Market, believes that although there is only one "G" added from 4G to 5G, the complexity of 5G is more than one era more than 4G, including the frequency band, bandwidth, number of channels, and system simulation have undergone comprehensive and three-dimensional changes. Instead, De-Tech has accumulated experience for many years and has made technical preparations for 5G.

Keysight already has rich experience in millimeter wave and large bandwidth, the biggest challenges of 5G, which is related to its history in defense and military industry. Keysight's predecessor, Agilent, was part of HP's business.

As early as the 1980s, HP launched microwave-related test and measurement products for the US military, laying the foundation for millimeter waves and large bandwidth. Since then, it has further improved its technology reserves, personnel quality and capabilities.

In 2017, Keysight launched the millimeter-wave spectrum and signal analysis product N9041B, which is also the industry's first analyzer with a frequency coverage of up to 110 GHz and a maximum analysis bandwidth of 5 GHz. The coverage frequency is the first in the industry, far exceeding the industry average, leaving room for development.

In a previous interview, Keysight Technologies stated that testing plays an important role in the entire process of technology research, product development, and equipment mass production.

In the early stages of technology research, even the most fantastic ideas must be verified before a project can be established and the next step of research and development can be carried out; otherwise, it will be just empty talk. In the large-scale construction stage, mobile phones must also be repeatedly tested to solve problems with Wi-Fi, signals, batteries, etc. before they can be put into production. When repairing the network, it is also necessary to test where the problem occurs.

Therefore, testing will be ubiquitous throughout the entire life cycle of 5G, and it is very important to prepare for technical research and development of testing. As a global company, Keysight is working with universities, organizations, and companies in various countries to improve testing capabilities.

Mr. Zheng Jifeng, General Manager of Keysight Technologies Greater China

Fully participate in China's 5G construction

"Today, the Chinese market is the second largest market after the United States. The opinions and standards of Chinese customers can already influence the future strategic development of Keysight Technologies," said Mr. Yan Zhongyi.

In order to better serve Chinese customers and seize huge market opportunities, Keysight Technologies is also actively cooperating with China to assist China in completing the construction of 5G networks.

In early 2016, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology launched 5G technology research and development trials.

Keysight Technologies has allocated dedicated personnel and funds, deployed a local R&D team, assigned dedicated marketing personnel to track the entire process, dedicated engineers to provide daily technical support after the initial joint debugging, and a dedicated key account team to communicate with customers in order to respond to the needs of Chinese customers.

In general, Keysight has actively participated in the first phase and invested more in the second phase. It has currently provided support to major manufacturers such as Huawei, ZTE, Ericsson, Nokia, and Datang.

That is why we can see that at this MWC, Keysight Technologies and Unisoc signed a memorandum of cooperation to help Unisoc verify its 5G RF chip and baseband chip design solutions in a design and testing environment, and accelerate the development of 5G technology through the design, verification, testing and measurement of 5G chip platforms and related equipment.

The demonstration with Datang Mobile was based on Datang Mobile's base station and Keysight's terminal (UE) simulation platform, as well as 5G-NR (New Radio) technology.

It also launched the most complete suite of 5G-related solutions and services to date.

On February 12, Keysight Technologies announced that it had passed the review of the China IMT-2020 (5G) Promotion Group (hereinafter referred to as the 5G Promotion Group) and was approved to become a formal member of the Promotion Group.

Mr. Yan Zhongyi said that as a world-leading test and measurement company, Keysight Technologies is committed to the innovative research and development of 5G test and measurement technologies, and has long been rooted in China, investing in China and serving Chinese companies.

For a long time, Keysight Technologies has relied on its local talent advantages and huge 5G R&D investment to actively support and participate in the research of my country's major national special projects, and has undertaken a number of key 5G topics; bringing together Keysight Technologies' global advantageous resources to fully support China's 5G technology trials, Keysight Technologies has actively completed and delivered a satisfactory answer with industry-leading excellent results.

"With its leading position and huge investment in China's 5G industry, Keysight Technologies has been unanimously recognized by the 5G authoritative organization IMT-2020 (5G) Promotion Group and industry partners, and has become one of the top 5G members. Keysight Technologies is the first and currently the only foreign company formally member of the promotion group in the field of test and measurement."

In order to better integrate into China

In order to better integrate into China, in addition to actively participating in the construction of China's 5G network, Mr. Yan Zhongyi said that Keysight Technologies also attaches great importance to investment in China.

It is understood that Keysight Technologies currently has three laboratories around the world, one in the United States, one in Europe, and the last one is in Beijing, China.

As one of Keysight's technology R&D systems, Keysight has also established a software center in Beijing to deepen its ties with Chinese customers and standards organizations.

At the same time, Keysight Technologies has established open laboratories in major cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, and Chengdu.

"The establishment of the open laboratory aims to be open to the whole society. By providing all of Keysight's test and measurement equipment, we can help China's small and medium-sized enterprises solve the various test and measurement problems encountered at the beginning of their business. For these small and medium-sized enterprises, some companies do not have a large number of instruments for test and measurement, and some are in new fields and do not have mature test and measurement solutions. Keysight can help them solve the various problems they encounter." When talking about Keysight's investment in China, Mr. Yan Zhongyi emphasized that the above measures are all Keysight's investment strategies in China.

"In the past five years, Keysight Technologies has won the Best Partner Award from Huawei for consecutive years." Keysight Technologies is the only test and measurement manufacturer to receive this honor.

Mr. Du Jiwei, Marketing Manager of Internet Infrastructure Testing Solutions, Greater China

Equipment manufacturers can also become younger and more internet-based

In the Internet age, all industries are being influenced by the Internet and are undergoing profound changes, and the test and measurement industry is no exception.

Mr. Du Jiwei said that Keysight Technologies is constantly keeping pace with the times in order to better adapt to the trend, "because in the Internet age, we can use the Internet to transmit technology and knowledge faster and more efficiently. Therefore, Keysight Technologies Thanksgiving Month was born."

It is understood that this year's Keysight Technologies Thanksgiving Month is the third one. In the two previous sessions, this event was still called Oscilloscope Thanksgiving Month, which was a large-scale event mainly for Keysight Technologies oscilloscope users.

"Over the past year, we have received a lot of feedback from customers and participants that they would like to see more devices besides oscilloscopes, so this year we have expanded it to Keysight Appreciation Month, covering all categories of Keysight products."

Every engineer has a dream, which is to have his own basic laboratory, and measuring instruments play an important role in it. Not only that, engineers must also be proficient in various usage skills. With 79 years of technical accumulation, Keysight not only deeply understands the What (what) in measurement technology, but also knows various How (how to do it). Every working day in the Thanksgiving Month, we share with engineers how to solve some difficulties in daily testing work. This is what we call "having content".

Keysight Technologies' annual Thanksgiving Month not only draws instrument prizes every weekday and shares a large number of test methods and usage tips, but also adds corresponding test questions and answers. The weekly point rankings have corresponding gifts and titles, striving to be "informative" as well as "interesting" and "surprising".

Mr. Zhu Huapeng, Oscilloscope Marketing Manager of Keysight Technologies

Zhu Huapeng, Oscilloscope Marketing Manager, added, "In addition, on March 7 and 20, Keysight Technologies also invited Professor Chen Wei and Dr. Huang Minchao, two well-known experts in the electronics industry, to give technical lectures and host the dream test bench lucky draw on the same day. The winning users will receive a full set of basic experimental instruments provided by Keysight Technologies: including an oscilloscope, power supply, benchtop multimeter, handheld multimeter and handheld LCR meter."

Mr. Zheng Jifeng said, "In 2018, Keysight Technology aims to help customers gain a deeper understanding of test and measurement with a comprehensive and three-dimensional market vision. KEE (Keysight Engineering Education) focuses on the professional interpretation of the basic knowledge of test and measurement, with one question per month to share Keysight's 79 years of technology accumulation; Thanksgiving focuses on test methods and techniques, with one test per day for a month to help users transform; Keysight Technology Summit focuses on connecting industry leaders, exploring cutting-edge technologies and solutions, and expanding horizons for two consecutive days. Thanksgiving Month is not only a technology sharing platform for Keysight Technology, but also a platform for in-depth interaction with customers, with one test per day to test knowledge, and we look forward to receiving more high-quality articles from customers, breaking last year's record of 123 articles."

Text/Semiconductor Industry Observer Liu Yi

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