Company Profile: Agilent

Company History

Agilent Technologies, a spin-off of Hewlett-Packard Co., broke records on Nov. 18, 1999 as the largest initial public offering (IPO) in Silicon Valley history. The US $2.1 billion raised from that IPO was a sharp contrast to the $538 in working capital that founders Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard began with in 1938. From a small garage in Palo Alto, CA, to employees around the world serving customers in 110 countries, Agilent has a long history of innovation and leadership in the communications, electronics, semiconductor, test and measurement, life sciences and chemical analysis industries. Following its successful IPO in 1999, Agilent is now a fully independent company focusing on high-growth markets in communications, electronics and life sciences. Agilent is recognized as an industry and global leader.

Company Today

As the world’s premier measurement company, Agilent works in close collaboration with engineers, scientists and researchers around the globe to meet the communications, electronics, life sciences and chemical analysis challenges of today and tomorrow. The company operates two primary businesses—electronic and bio-analytical measurement—supported by Agilent Laboratories, its central research group. Agilent is committed to providing innovative measurement solutions that enable our customers and partners—the leaders in their fields—to deliver the products and services that make a measurable difference in the lives of people everywhere. With a singular focus on measurement, Agilent helps:

• Test more than half of the world’s 1.13 billion cell phones

• Equip more than 200 communications service providers

• Advance next-generation integrated voice, video and data

• Enable the military to be more flexible, mobile and reliable

Agilent’s electronic measurement business provides standard and customized electronic measurement instruments and systems, monitoring, management and optimization tools for communications networks and services, software design tools and related services that are used in the design, development, manufacture, installation, deployment and operation of electronics equipment and communications networks and services.

In 2006 Agilent introduced the E4898A Bit Error Ratio Tester (BERT) that is the industry’s first to operate at speeds of up to 100 Gb/s. That same year Agilent introduced the MXA signal analysis platform which is the industry’s fastest signal analyzer with the highest accuracy of any midrange analyzer. In 2007 the Agilent E6651A was introduced and became the worlds first integrated Mobile WiMAX™ test set enabling designers and manufacturers of Mobile WiMAX&trade subscriber products to rapidly move from development to volume production—improving the integrity and quality of WiMAX devices while reducing cost. Recently Agilent introduced the Industry-First HSPA+ test solution for 3GPP-compliant components making it the only commercially available HSPA+ signal analysis test solution in the industry. Agilent also released its newest LTE test products, including the first-to-market LTE UE development test platform, the Agilent E6620A with real-time protocol development tools created in partnership with Anite plc. This LTE UE platform will help R&D engineers speed development of LTE UE design for next-generation mobile communications products.