Agilent Technologies Announces Strategic Partnership with Mentor Graphics on Automotive Network Design, Test and Validation Tools

Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A) today announced a strategic partnership with Mentor Graphics (NASDAQ: MENT), licensing to Agilent certain products in the Mentor Graphics Volcano(r) product line. The Agilent LIN Tester, derived from Mentor’s Volcano LIN Spector(tm) product, and the Agilent Vehicle Protocol Tester Series 500, derived from Mentor’s Volcano TELLUS(r) product, help automotive engineers develop electronic products faster and under budget while meeting quality requirements.

The strategic partnership allows Agilent to provide a more complete solution for automotive customers:

-Agilent now provides test and validation tools beyond the physical layer up to the protocol layer, addressing the increasing complexity of the vehicle network topology and the need for higher network bandwidth and higher reliability;
-The Mentor Graphics workflow allows an engineer to design a vehicle network to correctness by capturing and validating high-level requirements in the early design phase, then automate the generation of the communication matrix. This enables a predictable and guaranteed data communications implemented by embedded software; and
-Customers using the Mentor Graphics vehicle network design tools with the Agilent Tester will get immediate validation results.
“Mentor Graphics’ extensive vehicle protocol analysis and node emulation products complement Agilent’s leading physical layer test tools,” said Roland Jeutter, automotive business manager at Agilent Technologies Germany. “Customers using Mentor Graphics’ vehicle network design tools with the Agilent test and validation products will be able to easily verify complex signal chains and network/signal timings.”

“Our partnership with Agilent allows us to focus on our core competencies, the network and electronic design tool and embedded software for AUTOSAR and beyond,” said Joachim Langenwalter, director, Automotive Networking Business Unit at Mentor Graphics Germany. “With Agilent, the market leader in test and measurement solutions, our customers will gain a continuous flow combining the best technologies, from design thorough implementation all the way to test and validation, far beyond classical protocol test.”

Agilent is demonstrating its new products here this week:

-The Agilent 500 Series vehicle protocol tester (VPT501): The VPT501 comes with an intuitive PC software application, providing easy network timing checks, signal chain analysis across multiple networks and physical I/Os, complemented by standalone data logging. The VPT501 has the following interfaces:
2x CAN, 2x LIN;
8x digital I/Os; and
100MBps Ethernet link to PC.
-The Agilent LIN Tester: This is a highly flexible analysis and emulation tool used for the testing and validation of LIN communication systems. The tool is divided into two components: an external hardware portion and a PC-based software portion. It supports both 12V and 24V designs. Some of the highlights are:
Full master / slave capabilities of one or more nodes;
LIN 2.0 compliant; and
LIN Go editor to handle graphical objects.
U.S. Pricing and Availability

The Agilent J8115A LIN Tester will be available in July 2007. Pricing starts at $5,900. The Agilent J8120A Vehicle Protocol Tester (VPT501) will be available in the third calendar quarter of 2007. Pricing for the J8120A starts at $9,800. More information about Agilent’s automotive product offering is available at www.agilent.com/find/automotive-test.

Product photos are available at www.agilent.com/find/J81x_images.