| What were Agilent’s major business activities last year? Have you noticed any ups & downs in your business?
The year 2012 has been a mixed year not only for Agilent Technologies but for entire test and measurement market. Customers were cautious in
2012 due to the weak global and Indian macro- economic environment. Market segments like Communication & Industrial have been challenging, and government funding also showed signs of slowing down.
Moving forward, the Global and Indian economy seems cautious for some more time to come. In India, things may improve post the balanced budget, but it is still too early to comment on anything yet. Despite the slowdown, we continue to see enormous opportunities for Agilent Technologies in areas such as aerospace, defense, communications, computers, semiconductors & industrial.
Please update us about the set of innovations introduced in i3 last year.
i3 2012 saw a total of around 600 entries out of which 40 best-in-class innovations were showcased at the National Fair.
The top five cash award winners selected by the national jury were:
First Prize: Dilip Shrinivas Velaskar for his Thrombochek Test to reduce Thrombotic Mortality Second Prize: Anirudh Thakur for hydro operated jute and paper bag making machine
Third Prize: Sabarinath C Nair for a simple, intuitive & gamified simulation for welding training, helping trainers to train upto 4 times their current batch size with much better focus on fundamentals
Fourth Prize: Shrikant Kunden for Digital Location
System
Fifth Prize: Adess Singh for a device to trap particulate matter (smoke) from engine exhaust, without increasing backpressure
Our incubator partners are involved in discussions with a couple of innovators from 2012 to evaluate whether their innovation is market ready or whether it needs mentor support.
We introduced i3 with the objective to provide innovative minds a platform to convert viable ideas to reality. India has a large talent base and initiatives like i3 give people a chance to showcase futuristic and break-through innovations, and potentially reach out to a global audience
Agilent takes an active role in supporting higher education and research around the world, please highlight Agilent key role in University Education. Please add your recent activity for India education, design and development?
Agilent takes an active role in supporting higher education and research around the world. Agilent contributes measurement expertise, products and financial support to academic research in our fields of endeavor. Our connections with the academic research community build enduring partnerships with thought leaders, educate the next generation of employees and customers, inform our development efforts, and result in publications that define i m p o r t a n t a p p l i c a t i o n s o f m e a s u r e m e n t technologies.
In India, we recently collaborated with PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, for the setting up of an Advanced Wireless Communications Lab at their campus. PSG reached out to seek the help of Agilent to set up this lab. Agilent made recommendations on the syllabus and lab infrastructure requirements of this new course to the ECE Department. As part of its university relations program, it also financially supported PSG by picking up approx. 50% of the cost of the setup. Agilent will also help the ECE Department connect with the Indian wireless ecosystem for research projects, as well as job placements for its students. This is the second time we have been associated with PSG; previously Agilent helped establish a complete Multipurpose Lab in 2008.
We also signed a Research Sponsoring Agreement with Amrita University. We lent equipment worth
$250,000 to aid research and also provided research material worth $10,000 to the university. Additionally, Amrita University has agreed to collaborate with Agilent’s Life Sciences Center India in Bangalore by sharing samples and by providing expert support for developing application solutions and joint publications. Their lab is located at Kollam, their Kerala branch.
How is the wireless evolution adding new challenges for test and measurement equipment manufacturers?
In the wireless segment, the industry started with GSM and GPRS technologies which are 2G and 2.5G technologies. While this served the industry for voice and data connectivity, the real push to the value added services happened with the arrival of 3G services in the industry. 3G network served well for moderate to high data transfer rate, but the need for high speed wireless connection at the user end was the driver towards development of LTE. With our experience of control, signaling and data transfer in the wireless domain coupled with the requirement of high QoS and QoE at the user end, LTE wireless access technology has evolved and promises high quality with very high speed or throughput of data connection.
The following are some challenges that the T&M
industry faces from customers in different domains:
– R&D operations are working on cutting-edge technologies of the future, and need equipment that will help them test these technologies for future- readiness. Agilent Technologies has been actively working with the standard bodies and customers alike to ensure future-readiness of its customer’s products.
– Product development companies on the other hand, have a need to test their products faster & at a lower cost to ensure quick time-to-market with cost- competitiveness. Agilent Technologies serves the market with the broadest range of test solutions to suit every test need.
– Network deployment & service providers are driven by fast roll-outs and penetration, given the ever increasing subscriber base. Their requirement for Test is marked by a company’s ability to scale & train. Down-time & Call-drops are a critical metrics for them where they need help. Agilent Technologies’ superior measurement Science guarantees reliability and repeatability of test results.
Agilent in Wireless
Agilent, world’s premier measurement company, is well poised to provide state of the art measurement solution. Agilent is the only company which has the complete set of solutions from R&D and Manufacturing to Network Deployment. Agilent offers comprehensive solution in 2, 2.5G, 3G, Base Station Testers, Antenna Testers, WiMAX™, LTE & LTE- Advanced Test Solutions. Agilent products provide mobile phone designers and manufacturers with increased measurement speeds, improved accuracy, and exceptional flexibility for testing mobile devices. Our one box test sets cover all the major technology formats – GSM, (E)GPRS, W-CDMA, HSPA, cdma2000®, 1xEV-DO, IS-95, AMPS, Bluetooth®, Bluetooth Enhanced Data Rate (EDR), ZigBee™, Wireless LAN (WLAN), 802.11a/b/g, 802.11n MIMO, WiMAX™, and Mobile WiMAX™, LTE & LTE- Advanced. |
 reality. India has a large talent base and initiatives like i3 give people a chance to showcase futuristic and break-through innovations, and potentially reach out to a global audience.
Agilent has won many awards for product innovations. Which recent story you would like to tell us for best promising innovation award?
Recent awards received by Agilent Technologies in
India –
2012: Agilent won the ‘2012 Frost & Sullivan India Award for its Market Share Leadership’ in Wireless Communication Test Equipment.
2012: Mr. Keshav Bapat, GM-Sales, Agilent Technologies India, was awarded the coveted award from Association of Old Crows (AOC) India Chapter for ‘Best Contributor to Electronics Warfare (EW) from Private Industry’.
2012: Once again, Agilent Technologies was chosen as the ‘2012 Top T&M Company in India’ by V&D 100.
2011: Agilent won the award for ‘Product Innovation in Measurement & Instrumentation (India)’ at GIL
2011, Frost & Sullivan event on Growth, Innovation and Leadership
2010: Agilent won the Frost & Sullivan Award for
‘Market Leadership in 3G and WiMAX Test Equipment Markets’ at their Annual Gathering of 2010 Indian Electronics Industry Excellence Awards.
2009: Agilent won the ‘2009 Global WiMAX and LTE Test Equipment Market Share Leadership Award’ By Frost & Sullivan.Awards received by Agilent Technologies globally –
Test and Measurement World 2013 Best in Test
- Digital Multimeters – U1177A Infrared-to- Bluetooth adapter for multimeters
- Oscilloscopes – InfiniiVision 4000 X-Series 2008.
- Signal Analyzers – M9703A AXIe High-Speed Digitizer, 8-channel, 12-bit, up to 3.2 GS/s (DDC capability)
- Signal Source – MXG X-Series Signal Generator
China Annual Creativity in Electronics (ACE) Awards 2013 Test & Measurement Tool of the Year
- InfiniiVision 90000 Q-Series Oscilloscopes
Frost and Sullivan
- Outstanding Customer Service Leadership in
Calibration Services Award, 2012
- Brazilian Customer Service Leadership Award in Electronic Test and Measurement 2012 Electronic Design Magazine – Best lectronic Design award for 2012
- InfiniiVision 4000 X-Series oscilloscopes Instrument Business Outlook (IBO) Industrial Design Gold Award
- Cary 630 FT-IR spectrometer Agilent has won many industry awards over the years and continues to do so. Agilent products are the benchmarks in their respective categories and both industry and customers attest to that.
Can you briefly discuss about the testing requirements in production, quality and R&D? And also discuss Agilent leadership in every field?
Testing requirements for production, quality and R&D have fine differences. Testing in production lines requires speed and repeatability of measurements and reliability of instruments. In R&D, where focus is to create and test new platforms to derive the maximum performance from a product – the technology differentiator and the ease of use of the instrument is key to help the researcher, scientist or the engineer. Quality of the measurements – linked to the precision, the accuracy, repeatability and reliability of measurement – can be provided by ensuring that no weak links that limit the performance exist in the measurement. Agilent provides solutions that address all these requirements. We are recognized in the market as complete solution providers and not Box- sellers.
In aerospace and defense, our products are used in the design and test state of electronic systems such as sophisticated avionics, radar, communication systems, satellite, surveillance and GPS. Agilent products are used across the development lifecycle of computers and semiconductors, from parametric test of semiconductor wafers, to functional and production test of printed circuits boards, to the final test of computer systems to ensure proper performance.
Designers of high-speed digital devices use our products to achieve the performance limits for the latest electronic requirements while ensuring conformance and interoperability with industry standards. For the general-purpose electronics market, our instruments accelerate far-reaching applications, from testing alternative sources of energy, to automotive electronics, to power management, to introducing future engineers and scientists in academia to fundamental electronic principles.
Agilent’s Life Sciences and Chemical Analysis groups provide application-focused solutions that include |
reality. India has a large talent base and initiatives like i3 give people a chance to showcase futuristic and break-through innovations, and potentially reach out to a global audience.
