Test and Measurement: Calian to take over R&S’ DOCSIS portfolio

Rohde & Schwarz said this week that its longterm partner, Calian, is going to take over the R&S DOCSIS portfolio.

Calian has been Rohde’s partner since mid-2011 and the two companies jointly developed DOCSIS test and measurement solutions; the company specializes in radio frequency and physical layer diagnostics for both lab and field testing, and R&S said that the transfer of its DOCSIS portfolio “demonstrates Calian’s commitment to growth in this industry.”

No financial details of the transition were disclosed, but it will take effect as of August 1, 2024. Rohde & Schwarz said that specific instruments involved include its R&S DOCSIS signal analyzer (DSA), DOCSIS signal analyzer (SFD) and its DOCSIS cable load generator (CLGD).

“As we hand over our DOCSIS portfolio to Calian, we want to assure our customers that their needs remain our top priority,” said Werner Dürport, product manager at Rohde & Schwarz who is responsible for the DOCSIS portfolio. “Calian has been a trusted partner since 2011, and their commitment to excellence in delivering technical solutions and products aligns with our own values. Calian will continue to provide the high level of service and support that our customers expect. We believe this move is in the best interest of our customers, especially with the continued evolution of DOCSIS technology.”

Dan Coode, VP of Terrestrial at Calian’s Advanced Technologies business unit, said: “We want this transition to be as seamless as possible, and customers can expect to continue to receive the same excellent customer service they had at Rohde & Schwarz. We are very excited to expand our portfolio with these exceptional Rohde & Schwarz products and make them our own.”

In other test news:

-Test company Averna is expanding its presence in North America and Asia with the acquisition of Global Equipment Services from Kimball Electronics. GES specialized in testing related to consumer electronics, semiconductor and medical devices.

Averna said that the transaction will “create one of the largest independent system integrators in test automation with 1,200 employees across 20 offices within 11 countries.” It expands Averna’s footprint in places such as Vietnam, China, and Japan, as well as in California in the United States with a location in San Jose. Averna said that as part of the acquisition, it is gaining 160,000 square feet of new manufacturing space, including class 100K and 10K clean rooms.

“With this acquisition, Averna now has a solid footprint in the Americas, Europe and Asia where the majority of our customers’ research & development and manufacturing activities are taking place,” said François Rainville, president and CEO of Averna. “Combine that with the in-depth automation, vision and test engineering capabilities of the team and their impressive client database, GES was clearly the right fit.”

“Being part of Kimball Electronics, we have been exposed to many large-scale projects.” said Chris Thyen, who is now VP of Averna APAC. “By joining forces with Averna, not only will we be exposed to a new landscape of test, but we can share our expertise in different areas of quality innovation.”

–Keysight Technologies this week said that it has been granted validation by the Global Certification Forum for the industry’s first 5G New Radio Frequency Range 1 (which is sub-6 GHz) 1024-QAM demodulation test cases, based on 3GPP’s TS 38.521-4 test specification.

The validation came at the Conformance Agreement Group #79 meeting of the Global Certification Forum in July.The validated test cases are for use with Keysight’s 5G network emulation conformance test platform.

–O-RAN Alliance and ATIS have put together a joint process by which O-RAN Alliance specifications can be transposed to ATIS standards.

ATIS President and CEO Susan Miller said that this “gives the combined weight of both organizations to a common technical basis for interoperability in the Open RAN market.” More details in this piece.