Agilent Technologies Inc. today announced that Haier (Beijing) IC Design Company Ltd. has selected its SmarTest Program Generator design-for-test software to reduce test time for China's first commercial set-top box (STB) ICs for digital television.

The Agilent 93000 SmarTest Program Generator (SmarTest PG) software is used for developing engineering and volume production tests for Haier's Hi2010 Patriot Series of MPEG-II decoder ICs. The Hi2010 is a high-performance, low-cost and easy-to-use MPEG-II decoder that integrates the decoding functions of ISO/IEC 13818 standards to decode and replay the modulated video and audio signals for digital satellite/cable television receivers.

Agilent SmarTest PG is an interactive, graphically oriented digital pattern, timing, and format generation suite of tools. Rather than simply translating files, SmarTest PG manages the test development process for each port from data extraction to generation of directly downloadable files, targeting the Agilent 93000 platform's advanced capabilities. SmarTest PG is part of Agilent's Power of DFT3 strategy for lowering cost of test and accelerating time to market through a combination of tools, alliances and standards, and the 93000 single scalable platform.

The Agilent 93000 SOC Series is the industry's fastest growing, lowest cost single, scalable platform with more than 600 installed systems worldwide. The Agilent 93000 SOC Series is designed to meet both the demanding performance and cost challenges of SOC testing. Models are configured to span the widest range of applications that may require ultra-high-speed digital data rates, up to 10 Gb/s, and the broadest range of mixed-signal and RF capabilities.