Electronics Weekly puts its questions to an industry figure: Hans Peter Kuhnert is v-p of sales for the EMEA region at Tektronix, the electronic test and measurement specialist
Will your customers see a change in style or approach from Tektronix as a result of its proposed acquisition by Danaher?
Tektronix will operate as a stand-alone operating company under the Tektronix brand name within Danaher’s Electronic Test business. The acquisition represents a good strategic fit alongside our new sister company, Fluke. I see our customers benefiting in three key ways - firstly, from the focused distribution channel that Danaher offers at the low end, secondly, from the experience that Tektronix brings to the high end, and thirdly, from our combined commitment to expanding our global reach, particularly in India, China and Japan.
Is the test market entering a period of change with further business consolidation and competition from non-traditional suppliers, in particular software vendors?
Application software will indeed have a key role in the future of test and measurement instruments and we already provide software for high speed digital technologies such as HDMI. However, we must not forget that essential to any high performance instrument is high speed, real-time acquisition technology which is needed to capture the data for analysis in the first place.
What is the biggest challenge facing the test instrument industry in 2008?
Undoubtedly to introduce test and measurement technology that helps engineers advance the digital world we are facing today. The latest technologies, including high speed serial data, digital RF and digital video, are faster and often more complex than prior generations and require test solutions capable of greater performance and more extensive analysis.
PC-based test systems are becoming more popular amongst users. Does this mean that the days of the traditional benchtop instrument are numbered?
Many instruments are now being developed with embedded PCs and a Windows-based operating environment. Our newest oscilloscopes are providing application-specific support to allow triggering, analysis and decoding for different technologies and standards, such as PCI Express, HDMI, CAN/LIN and others. However, for more general purpose applications where the price/performance ratio is always more sensitive, the traditional bench top instrument will always be preferred.
Will we see an oscilloscope with a real-time bandwidth of 50GHz within the next 5 years?
What we do know is that serial data technologies continue to accelerate with several operating at or above 5Gbit/s and 10Gbit/s in the near future. This requires scopes with greater performance. We will continue to raise the performance bar for real-time oscilloscopes.
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