The belt-tightening measures are significantly affecting the way they are purchasing test and measuring equipment.
“They (customers) are always looking at price and performance very carefully when they consider system purchases. Since the budgets are very tight, they want to make a good purchase, which will enable them to use it for the future. Still they are thinking about future applications when they make purchases today, “said Mark Cejer, director of marketing with Keithley Instruments, Inc. at a press conference here Seoul
“They also want to have a good flexibility. They want to reuse the equipment in other applications. They also want to repurpose it to be used in different department or to test different devices and different manufacturing lines, for example. They want their instruments tool easier to use, too offering higher speed and more capability,” added he
To keep up with the changes in buying patterns, Keithley is now aggressively lining up an array of new test and measuring equipment, which the company said are specifically designed to focus on a balance between price and performance as well as value.
Its series 2600B SourceMeter SMU instruments are one testimonial product offering to demonstrate how Keithley will be mixing up its product offerings to satisfy customers’ widely different and specific needs in terms of price and performance.
Series 2600B SourceMeter SMU Instruments
(Photo : 2600B SourceMeter SMU/by the courtesy of Keithley)
“What we have with this new model is increased productivity in a variety of applications from R&D to production. The SourceMeter is used in many applications from electronics manufacturing companies to universities to research areas to semiconductor companies and electronics components companies to test DC voltage current,” said he
Built with its 3rd generation SMU technology, the series 2600B is an addition of important new capabilities to its series 2600A, sporting a 6 1/2 display resolution on its front panel and can communicate with computers over USB-TMC connectivity, which is a test and measurement class USBl . It also carries a model 2400 software command emulation.
(Photo : Model 2110 / by the courtesy of Keithley)
More importantly, it has a backward-compatibility with its series 2600A SourceMeter SMU, featuring a browser-based graphical user interface. The GUI enables true plug 7 play capabilities for doing current and voltage characterization applications. It is also built in a Test-Script Processor technology to deliver unmatched system speed, sporting a TSP-link technology. The TSP-Link enables users to do multiple channels of parallel test.
Introduced 3 years ago, it series 2600A has many advanced features for high speed production.
As part of its series 2600B, Keithley unveiled three models - model 2604B, 2614B, and 2634B- for R&D, teaching labs, and other benchtop applications. This is a good fit for price-conscious, budget customers, who need high precision measurements, but do not necessarily demand system-level test automation.
For example, its 6 1.2 digit display can offer industry’s best 0.1 femtoA,or fA current resolution, allowing users to see smaller and detail changes in measurements for a more complete characterization.
The measuring and test equipment company also unveiled model 2110 51/2 digit dual-display digital multi-meter and series 2200 multi-channel programmable DC power supplies.
