August 2016
Debugging I2C Buses in Embedded Systems
‚
The MicRed Power Tester 600A
‚
Building a Platform to Launch the Future Interview with Ryan Panos, Vice President and General Manager at Cobham AvComm
www.keysight.com/find/ScopeMVP
CONTENTS
Modern Test & Measure
EDITORIAL STAFF Content Editor Karissa Manske kmanske@aspencore.com Digital Content Manager Heather Hamilton hhamilton@aspencore.com Director, Creative Development Jeff Chavez jchavez@aspencore.com Graphic Designer Carol Smiley csmiley@aspencore.com Audience Development Claire Hellar chellar@aspencore.com
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EEWEB FEATURE The MicReD Power Tester 600A Making Simple Work of Complex Specifications with TekExpress National Instrument’s WLAN Measurement Suite Tests to Early 802.11ax Spec TECH SERIES Debugging I2C Buses in Embedded Systems INDUSTRY INTERVIEW Building a Platform to Launch the Future Interview with Ryan Panos, VP and GM, Cobham AvComm
Register at EEWeb http://www.eeweb.com/register/
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Published by AspenCore 950 West Bannock Suite 450 Boise, Idaho 83702 Tel | 208-639-6464 Victor Alejandro Gao General Manager Executive Publisher Cody Miller Global Media Director Group Publisher
EEWeb
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Modern Test & Measure
The MicReD
Power Tester 600A
Advances Thermal Reliability Analysis and Characterization of EV/HEV Power Electronics By Richard Comerford
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EEWeb FEATURE
T
he electric vehicle market represents a $400 billion opportunity within a
decade, according to market analyst IDTech’s recent report, Electric Vehicle Forecasts, Trends and Opportunities 20162026. The report reads, “All components are changing with supercapacitors… new types of battery, energy harvesting, power electronics, and structure powering growth in this already huge and prosperous business… Disruptive change is now the norm and Apple-like inspiration and technological innovation is at last being seen.” Enter the MicReD Power Tester 600A from Mentor Graphics, the most recent example of such inspiration and innovation.
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Modern Test & Measure
The MicReD Power Tester 600A not only establishes the devices’ thermal reliability and life cycle performance, but also provides accurate data for modeling circuits for simulation.
This system is specifically designed to test power electronics in electric and hybrid vehicles (EVs/HEVs)—such as IGBTs, MOSFETs, transistors, and chargers—during power cycling. Recent headlines have shown us that thermal reliability issues can cause EVs/HEVs to be recalled. The MicReD Power Tester 600A not only establishes the devices’ thermal reliability and life cycle performance, but also provides accurate data for modeling circuits for simulation. What’s more, the tester is said to deliver unmatched accuracy and scalability. The tester is designed to be coupled with FloTHERM and FloEFD 3D CFD (computational fluid dynamics) software to provide front-loading thermal simulation of power modules. It can also be coupled with Flowmaster—a full-vehicle, thermo-fluid, systemof-system 1D CFD modeling tool—to yield extremely high levels of accuracy. This is done using T3Ster technology to input CFD material properties for automated model calibration so that the real temperature response of an EV/ HEV’s dynamic power input device can be accurately simulated. The combination
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EEWeb FEATURE of software tools and tester lets users generate IGBT thermal lifetime failure estimations with very high accuracy. The new tester provides a simple reliability testing process for life cycle estimation, with easy setup and fully automated power cycles. The embedded T3Ster “structure function” yields nondestructive “failure-in-progress” data for each IGBT. During testing, all necessary diagnostic information is recorded—from simple current/voltage/die temperature readings to “structure function” changes that point to reasons for failures in the package structure—allowing complete testing and analysis before production. The tester runs IGBT modules through tens of thousands of cycles to provide real-time failure-in-progress data for diagnostics, significantly reducing test time and eliminating the need for postmortem or destructive failure analysis. Based on actual data, 3D CFD simulation errors can be reduced from typically
up to 20% to 0.5% for accurate thermal characterization of IGBTs and components. A unique aspect of the tester is its scalability; up to eight testers can be chained together to allow users to power-cycle up to 128 IGBTs simultaneously in a system test. The tester delivers 48 Vdc under load, and users can test components mounted externally on the target cooling systems to maximize testing flexibility. The test system is also designed to support emerging best practices for EV/HEV power electronics testing, such as those currently being developed for the German automotive industry. Priced at $165,000 in single quantities, the system can be ordered now with shipping scheduled for the summer of 2016.
A unique aspect of the tester is its scalability; up to eight testers can be chained together to allow users to power-cycle up to 128 IGBTs simultaneously in a system test.
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Modern Test & Measure
Making Simple Work of
COMPLEX
SPECIFICATIONS with TekExpress BY RICHARD COMERFORD Senior Technical Editor Electronic Products
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EEWeb FEATURE
In March, Tektronix, a leading worldwide provider of measurement solutions, introduced the new TekExpress application with automated compliance test solutions for four-lane 100G electrical interfaces defined in the IEEE 802.3bm and 802.3bj specifications. Available for Tektronix performance oscilloscopes from 33 GHz up to 70 GHz, the $7,500 TekExpress supports 100G Ethernet (IEEE 802.3bj and IEEE 802.3bm Annex 83) electrical validation and characterization needs. Specific supported technologies are 100GBASECR4/KR4 and CAUI4, which are the principal electrical specifications for 100G Ethernet.
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Modern Test & Measure
The IEEE 802.3 specification is some 2,200 pages long and continually evolving, making it challenging for test engineers to come up to speed on such a massive specification. Tektronix has had a deep involvement with the IEEE 802.3 and other standards bodies, and this has allowed it to leverage its expertise to help translate the standard’s test requirements into easy-to-use turnkey test solutions that offer clear and concise characterization reports (see Fig. 1 below). The company sees reducing test and validation complexity as key to bringing interchangeable 100G optical and electrical modules to market in a timely manner.
I had the opportunity to speak with John Calvin, Performance Instruments Product Manager at Tektronix, about the introduction. In the course of our conversation, John mentioned that not only were real-time scopes operating at 70 GHz more than sufficient for this and the next generation of Ethernet technologies, but also that they were moving into a space formerly dominated by sampling scopes. After our telephone discussion, John followed up with an e-mail that I found so eloquent and informative that I want to reproduce it here.
Fig. 1. TekExpress 100GBASE Tx measurement example.
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EEWeb FEATURE
Greetings Richard, It was a pleasure discussing DataCom with you this morning. This is a care package with images you’re free to re-use. A few comments on the business of why Real Time is now playing in a field traditionally dominated by Sampling Instruments: The future of DataCom is clearly entrenched in heavily equalized signaling at speeds approaching 56 GBaud (112 Gbps) per lane. Clock recovery systems need to operate after the signal has been equalized, and this combination is either challenging (for the 28 GBaud case) or nonexistent (for the 56 GBaud case). This is the catalyst motivating many in this field to ask Tek to make a real-time-based DataCom solution. The other challenge is SNDR (Signal to Noise and Distortion Ratio), which does not play well with typical real-time noise and ENOB levels. The combination of lowest noise performance in real-time (70000 SX Asynchronous Time Interleaved) acquisition systems in our new performance portfolio allows us to come within several dB of the equivalent SNDR calculation done on sampling instruments. This offers users the versatility and ease of use in real-time with nearly sampling-level precision. Another related feature of the real-time analysis package for CAUI4/CR4/KR4 discussed here is that in a real-time solution, the actual waveforms analyzed in the conformance report are stored as well. This allows engineers to store away the source waveforms and recall or post-analyze them without the actual DUT at a later time. If someone complains about a particular jitter tone causing interference in a system 10 months after the silicon was first characterized, a designer can recall that original data and re-examine it without the actual part.
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Modern Test & Measure
This is the 33-GHz Bessel Thompson response required by the IEEE specs in the 100G space.
Similarly, the OIF-CEI community has a slightly higher bandwidth spin on this at 40 GHz.
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EEWeb FEATURE
The bottom line is that this ‘Bessel Thompson’ vocabulary is integral to both of the most prominent 100G Standards (IEEE 802.3 and OIF-CEI). This requires additional instrumentation bandwidth to accommodate the long Bessel Thompson tail, typically to the −10dB point. We spoke extensively about 802.3bj (KR4/CR4) and 802.3bm (CAUI4/SR4). We only briefly mentioned OIF-CEI. The reason for this is that the 100G OIF-CEI specs are largely being replaced by industrial-grade IEEE standards, which are superseding the older (circa 2009) OIF-CEI 100G specs. That said, OIF-CEI is leading the charge into 400G, which is kind of their thing. OIF-CEI are the scouts, and IEEE is the infantry. Regards,
John Calvin Performance Instruments Product Manager Tektronix Inc.
Click to learn more about Tektronix.
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Modern Test & Measure
National Instrument’s WLAN Measurement Suite Tests to Early 802.11ax Spec Latest Test-Software Version Targets Key Features of New Wireless Draft Standard Combined with NI’s RF vector signal transceiver (VST), the WLAN Measurement Suite supports draft 0.1 of the IEEE 802.11ax highefficiency wireless standard. This early-access software suite introduced at IMS2016 lets engineers measure the performance of their 802.11ax designs, a key necessity due to significant changes to the 802.11 physical layer specification. The WLAN Measurement Suite already gives researchers/engineers/technologists the ability to generate and analyze a wide range of 802.11 waveforms, such as those for 802.11a/b/g/n/j/p/ac/ah/af.
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EEWeb FEATURE
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Modern Test & Measure
THIS APPROACH TO RF TEST AIMS TO NOT ONLY HELP LOWER TEST COST, BUT ALSO BETTER PREPARE FOR FUTURE CONNECTIVITY AND CELLULAR STANDARDIZATION INITIATIVES, SUCH AS 5G.
The latest software supports such key features of 802.11ax as narrower subcarrier spacing, 1024-QAM, and multi-user OFDMA (orthogonal frequency division/multiple access). It also includes example system design code for LabVIEW to help engineers automate WLAN measurements quickly and easily. NI’s platform-based approach is designed to help ensure that engineers can configure their existing PXI RF test systems to support 802.11ax device testing with a simple software update, and continue to do so as the 802.11ax standardization process evolves. This approach to RF test aims to not only help lower test cost, but also better prepare for future connectivity and cellular standardization initiatives, such as 5G. “The fast pace of evolving wireless standards demands instrumentation that can evolve at the speed of software,” said Charles Schroeder, vice president of RF marketing at NI. “Our support for the latest 802.11ax draft standard in the WLAN Measurement Suite is part of the evolution of a platform that scales with changing connectivity standards and provides our customers with superior RF performance in lab and production environments.” The whitepaper “Introduction to 802.11ax High-Efficiency Wireless” provides more information about the new WLAN Measurement Suite and 802.11ax.
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EEWeb FEATURE
Some 802.11ax standard draft 0.1 characteristics versus current 802.11ac CHARACTERISTIC
802.11ac
802.11ax
BANDS
5 GHz
2.4 and 5 GHz
CHANNEL BANDWIDTH
20, 40, 80, 80+80 & 160 MHz
20, 40, 80, 80+80 & 160 MHz
FFT SIZES
64, 128, 256, 512
256, 512, 1024, 2048
SUBCARRIER SPACING
312.5 kHz
78.125 kHz
OFDM SYMBOL DURATION
3.2 us + 0.8/0.4 us CP
12.8 us + 0.8/1.6/3.2 us CP
HIGHEST MODULATION
256 QAM
1024 QAM
433 Mbits/s (80 MHz, 1 SS)
600.4 Mbits/s (80 MHz, 1 SS)
6.933 Gbits/s (160 MHz, 8 SS)
9.6078 Gbits/s (160 MHz, 8 SS)
DATA RATES
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MYLINK
MYLINK
Modern Test & Measure
Debugging
I2C Buses in Embedded Systems
By Teledyne LeCroy
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TECH SERIES
E
mbedded systems became ubiquitous decades ago and are now found in everything from mobile devices to
vehicles to the traffic lights that control their movements. These days, they’re typically based on microcontrollers and perform some specific task(s) within a larger system, such as controlling your car’s ABS system. They may or may not have any sort of user interface, and can range widely in terms of complexity and functionality.
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Modern Test & Measure
Teledyne LeCroy WaveSurfer 3000 oscilloscope
Anything beyond the absolutely simplest embedded systems will need to communicate with the outside world, and that is most typically done using synchronous serial-communication protocols. Three common examples of such protocols are I2C, SPI, and UART. Today’s digital oscilloscopes are well up to the task of debugging serial links. Let’s take a look at each of these protocols in turn and how an oscilloscope can ease the task. In this case, we’ll be looking at screen captures of an I2C waveform from a Teledyne LeCroy WaveSurfer 3000 oscilloscope (Figure 1).
The Inter-Integrated Circuit (I2C) Protocol I2C is a master/slave synchronous communication protocol that delivers data rates up to 3.4 Mb/s. It uses two bidirectional lines for signaling (clock and data). Slaves are addressed using unique addresses which can be in either a 7- or 10-bit format (Figure 2). An I2C system can have multiple masters, each with a unique address. Data transfers are initiated by the master with a start bit followed by the address of the intended slave and a read or write bit to indicate the nature of the transfer. Slaves respond with an ACK (acknowledge) bit. Figure 1. Debugging of I2C on a Teledyne LeCroy WaveSurfer 3000 oscilloscope
Color coding of the data stream makes for a much more informative and intuitive display.
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TECH SERIES Now is as good a time as any to mention the utility of color-coded overlays in an oscilloscope’s trigger/decode software. Color coding of the data stream makes for a much more informative and intuitive display. Depending on the timebase and the amount of zoom that’s applied, the decoded stream is expanded or condensed for improved understanding of events during long or short acquisitions. The I2C trigger decode software provides a wide range of triggering capabilities that enable quick location and isolation of events on the bus. There are simple triggers such as Start, Stop, No Ack, or Restart as well as more advanced triggering. Conditional data triggering allows selection of a range of data values to trigger on and not just a single value. Examples include less than, greater than, in range, and out of range. Just below the graticule in Figure 1 is a table display that summarizes protocol information. The table allows you to use the oscilloscope like a protocol analyzer; the table can be custom configured to display the desired data and export it
to an Excel file if you like. Touching an entry in the table automatically opens a zoom view of that portion of the acquisition. The table never obscures the view of the waveform. In the Address Setup section of the I2C trigger/decode dialog box (Figure 1 again), you can configure an address trigger in binary or hex and in either 7- or 10-bit formats. You can also decide to include or exclude the read/write bit in the address depending on how your I2C bus operates. The Data Pattern Setup section of the dialog box exemplifies the power of modern decode/trigger software. Here, you can set up the oscilloscope to trigger on Address + Data, or only on Data; data patterns may be entered in binary or hex. Binary triggering offers triggering on individual bits while hex triggering simplifies the setup of long data pattern triggers (up to 12-byte patterns are supported).
In the next issue of Modern Test & Measure, we’ll look more closely at the Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) protocol.
Touching an entry in the table automatically opens a zoom view of that portion of the acquisition. The table never obscures the view of the waveform. Figure 2. The breakdown of a basic I2C packet
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Modern Test & Measure
Building a Platform to Launch the Future Interview with Ryan Panos, Vice President and General Manager, Cobham AvComm
AvComm, based in the US with facilities in Wichita and Lenexa, KS as well as Powell, OH, is part of the vast British Cobham plc, or “The Group” as it prefers to call itself. The far-flung Group’s stated purpose is to offer “an innovative range of technologies and services to solve challenging problems across commercial, defense and security markets, from deep space to the depths of the ocean.” Although the AvComm unit is only two years old, it has a history of involvement with communications testing that can be traced back to the earliest days of radio. Recently, EEWeb had the opportunity to talk with Ryan Panos, Cobham AvComm’s Vice President and General Manager. He was able to delineate the roots of AvComm, how it currently supports its key markets, and how the last few years have brought a new clarity to the direction of the company’s product development and its future.
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INDUSTRY INTERVIEW
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Modern Test & Measure
Tell us about how Cobham AvComm got to be where it is today.
WE PRIMARILY FOCUS ON RADIO COMMUNICATIONS, INTEGRATED TEST PRODUCTS, FOR RADIO COMMUNICATIONS AND AVIONICS.
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Cobham AvComm is a business unit encapsulated in a much larger Cobham group of companies. We reside within the Communications and Connectivity sector of Cobham, a billion-dollar-plus entity.
of radio test and we are the market leader. For avionics, we have a plethora of products that support everything from the nav(igation) aids all the way through to IFF-45TS Transponder / Interrogator / TACAN Bench Test Set for the military. Between these two value streams this forms the core of what is now AvComm.
Our heritage comes from Aeroflex, which Cobham acquired in 2014. Aeroflex had acquired IFR (which had assimilated Marconi Instruments) prior to 2005, and the IFR nucleus is what has now grown into what we know as Cobham AvComm. We primarily focus on radio communications, integrated test products, for radio communications and avionics. Hence the new moniker, AvComm.
There are also two smaller business units integrated with this core to form AvComm: the first being the synthetic system group that specializes in complex application tests—TR modules and satellite payload mainly. And the other being the broadband group, which did a lot of the signal intelligence, signal gathering type of products such as BSAs and BSGs (broadband signal analyzers and generators).
The core of AvComm was traditionally anything that had to do with radio test, especially for the military. We had a long run with the AN/GRM-122, which tested all SINCGARS radios for the Army and international users, and more recently we received the Marine Corps contract for GRMATS (Ground Radio Maintenance Automatic Test Systems). We also do a fair amount with the Air Force and the Navy, and are actually well positioned in all of the Commands. Couple that with the land mobile radio marketplace where our 3920s and 8800s support the full spectrum
What’s happened in the two years since Cobham acquired Aeroflex and created AvComm? How has the interaction been between the two parts and what are each of them bringing into the game? Cobham brings a much larger company, breadth of products, and a different Business Unit (BU) portfolio with a more robust, internally focused process. When we were Aeroflex, we were very externally focused: customers, markets, and sales. When Cobham brought us in, they supplanted our existing focus with rigid financial practices and procedures as well as defined operational protocol. We were encouraged to move to Cobham’s processes, which gave us a better stance at taking on continuous improvement programs, managing inventory more
INDUSTRY INTERVIEW effectively, and configuring our manufacturing process flows. As a result much of AvComm’s back end was improved. Cobham left us relatively independent on dealing with the front end of business. Corporate encourages somewhat of an independent BU stance, so our ability to go out and support the marketplace wasn’t challenged. It was understood that they brought us in as a vehicle to get more involved with the commercial marketplace.
How would you say that in the last two years the company has changed from the old Aeroflex? Is it thinking in new areas of technology or taking its technology into new engineering areas? Because Cobham is so diverse, our exposure to the marketplace has broadened. We now get exposure to many things that we wouldn’t have looked at previously. AvComm was somewhat myopic in the radio test and avionics marketplace. Now, as Cobham, we look at a much more holistic view of anything RF. So in that respect it’s helped. We’re charging ahead with the plan we started about four years ago with expanding out of those two markets to be in a position to address a number of adjacent spaces.
One of the areas where you been leading the field is in military Software Defined Radio (SDR) and the Software Communications Architecture (SCA). Do you see that coming into the commercial world? Yes. That came about because we realized that our ability to introduce new products was getting to a point where we had difficulty keeping up with the demand of the marketplace. They were looking for a new innovation about every two to three years, and it would take us two to three years just to come out with a point-source solution. We had traditionally done very integrated test systems, meaning a box does many functions as opposed to just the singular. We started that 15 plus years ago, and about four plus years ago we realized our current engineering process wasn’t going to keep up. So we revamped everything we did to support a new architecture, a modular architecture. Not only hardware modularity but software application modularity.
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Modern Test & Measure
You were one of the early folks in the AXIe modular instrument format, correct?
THE RESULTING AXIE BACK PLANE SUPPORTS VERY HIGH DATA RATES, BETTER RACK SPACE UTILIZATION, AND VERY GOOD POWER AND HEAT DISSIPATION.
We actually co-developed it. We felt that, at the time, in order to go into the more modular aspect of the business, we needed a platform that had the capability to support the applications for the next 15-20 years. We looked around at the technology available at the time and felt that none of the existing modular instrument platforms matched our requirements. For our new architecture we wanted to use open industry standards wherever possible. Since none of the existing met our needs we developed the concept for AXIe and approached several companies about working together to create a new standard instead of making something proprietary. The resulting AXIe back plane supports very high data rates, better rack space utilization, and very good power and heat dissipation. In parallel we also developed a new software architecture. Prior to that, we would always have proprietary
software, and it would take on a life of its own as we had to support it over a 10 to 15-year period. Since we wanted to make all of this a very modular experience, we again tried to incorporate as many open standards as possible. We found that in order to incorporate these open standards, we needed a tool set for our design libraries and our design assets that would enable us to not only write code, but also be able to share it amongst our teams and projects in a way that was different from what we had done before. To meet this need, we chose the Software Communications Architecture (SCA) as a tool to move our software to a fully component based architecture. Because our test equipment is based on the same SCA tools that we design with, anybody who also utilizes SCA tools has a very high ease of use with our equipment. The application is now catching on with anybody designing software-defined radio that is utilizing the SCA. The SCA is going through a revision from a SCA 2.2.2 to 4.1 and since our platform is 2.2.2 compliant and will be 4.1 very soon we are well positioned to support these customers. Currently the only SCA tools available are either homegrown, or (for the most part) found through a Canadian company called NordiaSoft, whom we work with. NordiaSoft is only two years old, but the company’s core group has been supporting JTRS (US DOD Joint Tactical Radio Systems) for more than a decade. They had deep experience from their earlier days in the CRC
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INDUSTRY INTERVIEW (Canada’s Communications Research Centre) and they understand the SCA better than almost anybody out there. They provide SCARI Software Suite, a comprehensive Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for embedded and distributed systems using the SCA and the component software paradigm. We’re finding that this SCA tool set is starting to broaden out, initially from radios, and into a large portion of other applications: EW, signal intelligence, even radar systems are now being developed using the SCA. There are even a few transportations and robotics systems using it. There is a convergence in all of these new technologies of trying to utilize one set of standards. So that’s creating a positive effect on what we’re trying to bring out, to really revitalize the future of our work in a much more converged way, as opposed to what used to be a radio standard, an EW standard, and a radar standard.
And this is moving into the general commercial world? That’s correct. There is now a convergence between the applications in the military and the applications in the commercial wireless industry, say 4G/5G and Wi-Fi standards. There is going to be a joint need to utilize one set of standards. We’re betting that the SCA is in that set. And when it is, the wireless applications will start opening up in a few years to come. As the Internet of Things really starts bringing about the requirements of the future, those standards have not necessarily been defined yet. We’re banking on the fact that this is one technology that will continue growing for the next 15-plus years.
I’m thinking that the things that Cobham-AvComm is doing moves you almost into the front of the market, into the design process. That is true. The way we have now architected our solution is to make it lab grade. So R&D specialists can utilize our tools along with lab-grade hardware, utilizing it in the design phase. From there, the same SCA tools that would be used to write their software application assigned to a piece of hardware can migrate into the manufacturing side and then, ultimately, migrate into the field. It’s unlike what we would do in the past, when our marketplace was primarily the field. Before, we had a number of boxes that would be utilized at the end of the process. Now customers can utilize our platform in the R&D stage, and the same software created by the designers migrates all the way through production and into field test for total lifecycle support.
THERE IS GOING TO BE A JOINT NEED TO UTILIZE ONE SET OF STANDARDS. WE’RE BETTING THAT THE SCA IS IN THAT SET.
And with the AXIe, it fits beautifully in the production environment too. Yes, it does. You get to take a fully functioning box into the development labs, with a variety
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Modern Test & Measure
WE WILL CONTINUE TO SUPPORT OUR TRADITIONAL PRODUCTS AND ENHANCE THEM AS NEEDED UNTIL WE’RE READY TO TURN THE SWITCH AND MOVE ALL OF THOSE PRODUCTS OVER TO OUR NEW MODULAR PLATFORM.
of different hardware using the same software. We will ultimately produce an application store, where people can buy application software on the web through our marketplace. Some of our application software won’t need to be purchased. Rather, people can lease the software application for a while, apply it to a device, and pull it off as needed. This not only gives a flexibility from the modular hardware stance, but also the software application. So as a customer, I’m able to operate more agilely, I’m able to operate with lower overhead costs, I can move more quickly in the marketplace, and my development costs have been reduced. And your life cycle costs have been reduced immensely. This is what people are gravitating towards. We have initially received feedback from customers saying that they’ve never seen anything like this. Now I’m sure that technology like this is not necessarily a big secret so it’s fleeting that we’re currently the only ones out there offering this. My guess is that this will be the way many companies do business in the future. But I can tell you that this is a major undertaking: to completely revamp the engineering processes—multiple decades in the making, to be able to transform it into something that can think outside the box and use the tools to bring out products in this manner using the SCA and other modern tools.
What do you think will happen in the near future with Cobham AvComm? What types of products do you think you might
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be looking at, and where do you think the company will be five years from now? This past March, we rolled out our first product utilizing this technology; the first fully integrated SCA Platform. It’s a softwaredefined radio simulation, development, emulation and test platform, and we’re currently marketing it to anybody designing SCA based radios. So far, we’ve received very good initial appreciation of the technology and we’re engaged with a number of people. This new product is the leading edge of our complete transformation. We are still number one in radio test for a number of our traditional markets, such as avionics. We will continue to support our traditional products and enhance them as needed until we’re ready to turn the switch and move all of those products over to our new modular platform. All of the software written over the last 5+ years for our existing products is able to be ported over to the new base of modular products. It just takes a little bit of effort to do that, so our strategy is to continue selling and manufacturing products the market is currently gravitating toward. We will introduce new products for new applications in the next two to three years and, about four years from now, we plan to make a complete switch over to what we call the Cobham Modular Platform for all new products. For more information about Cobham please go to www.cobham.com and for more information about AvComm’s modular instrumentation please go to www.cobham.com/avcomm.
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