Editor’s Pick: A comprehensive toolset for electronics design and testing 

Keysight Technologies introduces an update to its PathWave comprehensive platform for electronics design and testing. The update includes five new modules to help engineers remove computational limitations that traditionally make electronics design more complex. It also adds cloud computation to streamline data workflow between modules.  

Keysight says typical electronics design/test workflows are inherently complex, thanks to the use of multiple solutions from multiple vendors. The company says PathWave integrates the key processes of electronics design/test workflow within one platform that offers a parallel processing approach of measurement disaggregation, separating multiple inputs for processing using cloud technology. The company says PathWave offers a consistent user experience along with common data formats and control interfaces. 

New in this update are five additional modules the company says leverage the power of cloud processing in electronics design/test environments. 

PathWave Advanced Design System: ADS reduces simulation time and increases test coverage by providing scalable hardware resources in the cloud. Keysight says this approach allows design engineers working on mobile and computer chipsets to perform compute-intensive electromagnetic simulations with on-premise clusters or scalable cloud resources. It also allows the user to take on large electronic simulations previously unsolvable due to resource limitations. 

PathWave Compliance Test: System test engineers need to perform rapid compliance tests but often are budget-restricted from using additional hardware to perform these tests. This new module uses measurement disaggregation to separate physical measurements from data processing in the cloud, and allows signal acquisition and measurement to run in parallel, reducing overall test time. 

PathWave Test Automation: This module allows engineers to optimize multiple instrument setups with resource arbiter and timing analyze tools. The software integrates with existing automated test system workflow to minimize setup time.

PathWave Measurement Analytics: Validation test and production engineers can visualize and analyze measurement data in the cloud without the need to create spreadsheets. The company says this means engineers have greater insight into test data while providing fast and accurate test analysis and troubleshooting. 

PathWave Manufacturing Analytics: Keysight describes this module as its Industry 4.0 platform for big data advanced analytics. The company has a new partnership with Kx for the launch of a new Workcell edition for smart factories. Keysight says key benefits include faster data acquisition, automation of complex workflows, and the ability to improve analytics with machine learning. 

This update to PathWave is now available from Keysight Technologies.

Sources: Press materials received from the company and additional information gleaned from the company’s website. 

More Keysight Technologies Coverage