The general-purpose test equipment market is expected to grow at nearly 6% per year through 2026, reaching $1.95 billion by the end of the forecast period, according to new numbers from TechNavio. This market segment includes oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers, network analyzers, arbitrary waveform generators, power meters, electronic counters and multimeters. The market analysis firm said that the oscilloscope segment will account for the largest instrument-specific share of the market, and Asia-Pacific will have the largest share of the market on a regional basis.
The increasing use of automated machines, and the need to test their components, is driving the use of test equipment in verticals including food and beverage, manufacturing, automotive, and energy and utilities, TechNavio said. However, there’s a long replacement cycle for such equipment, the firm noted: Buyers prefer to retrofit rather than replace the entire system due to the cost involved, and the changes in processes that that would necessitate — which also means that customers don’t necessarily make a lot of new purchases that would present an opportunity to switch to a different vendor or experiment with a new product from a new player.
In other test news:
–Rohde and Schwarz has opened a new subsidiary in Israel, which the company says the “next logical step” after relying on a local distribution partner in the country for two decades. The subsidiary is located in central Israel in Ra’anana and has 15 employees, and R&S is also opening its own test and measuremenet service lab with both equipment and certified service personnel.
“Working directly with our local customers is becoming ever more important to better meet their requirements. Having our own local presence will help us establish closer ties between these customers and our R&D departments to develop future-proof solutions,” said Frank Oehler, managing director of Rohde and Schwarz Israel.
–Keysight Technologies released 2023 updates for its its flagship Pathwave design software. Joe Civello, director of RF and microwave simulation at Keysight, said that the new Pathwave Advanced Design System software “offers workflow and simulation performance improvements that accelerate the design and simulation process while delivering the analysis results necessary to ensure designs meet critical electrical and thermal performance requirements.”
Keysight also noted this week that it supported the latest O-RAN Alliance plugfest, saying that its Keysight Open RAN Architect (KORA) solutions enabled 15 vendors, four mobile operators and two Open Testing and Integration Centers (OTICs) to verify specification compliance and integration of multi-vendor network functions at three plugfest venues and five labs, spread out across Asia, Europe and North America.
-In other Keysight news, the company released some commissioned research this week on the extent to which companies are using (and want to use) automated testing to deal with rising test times and complexity. Three-quarters of those surveyed said that their business relies on a combination of automated and manual testing, with only 11% reporting that they have a “fully automated” test strategy. Read the full story here.
-Taiwanese company TMY Technology, which focuses on millimeter-wave antenna design, prototyping and testing, has joined the GSMA.
–Resound Networks and Globtel Holding released fixed wireless testing results this week that achieved gigabit-level results a a distance of seven miles from a site, using unlicensed and license-exempt spectrum and Globtel equipment. “The achieved distances are arguably the furthest at which any fixed wireless technology has met the FCC gigabit tier requirements” for Rural Digital Opportunities Fund (RDOF) deployments, the companies said in a release. Resound CEO Tyson Curtis said that the field testing performance “was extraordinary and exceeded our expectations” and that the company plans to use Globtel’s Air Gigaray equipment for its RDOF build-out.
-The overall terahertz technology market is expected to see a nearly 20% compound annual growth rate over this decade, according to P&S Intelligence, driven by expanding use of terahertz frequencies use in imaging, healthcare, military applications and future 6G communications networks. P&S estimates that the terahertz tech market will grow from about $450.5 million in 2021 to nearly $2.3 billion by 2030.
-New analysis from Ookla shows mixed results for SpaceX’s low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite-based Starlink services: A big jump in downlink speeds in the U.S. and Canada, tempered by a slowdown in the uplink. Read more details here.