EPN April 2012 - (Page 46)

40th anniversary interview Keithley Instruments: from Phant by Mick Elliott, Test Editor, EPN A garage with a leaky roof. Sound familiar? The home garage is the origin of many a fine technology company, and Keithley Instruments founded in 1946 is in the top rank. Here Mark Hoersten, Vice President - Marketing for Keithley Instruments in Cleveland, Ohio, which is part of the Tektronix test and measurement portfolio tells EPN’s Mick Elliott about the early products and the company’s achievements in bringing important, ground breaking products including the SourceMeter into the instrumentation arena. When and where was Keithley Instruments founded? Keithley Instruments was founded in 1946 in Cleveland, Ohio, as a one-man operation. Joseph F. Keithley, who graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a master’s degree in engineering in 1937, started the company in a former garage with a leaky roof that he rented for $8.50 per month. What were its first products? Keithley’s first product, the “Phantom Repeater”, amplified low-level electrical signals so that they could be measured by more standard equipment. The device was used by physicists, chemists, and engineers in the development of hearing aids and amplifiers, for example. Joe Keithley noted that the Phantom Repeater was only “a reasonable success”, but it marked the first of the many innovative products and solutions that followed. How has the company evolved in the past 40 years? In the 1950s, the growing company began expanding its efforts far beyond the 46 April 2012 – epn issue n° 04 Phantom Repeater into the design and development of instruments like electrometers, microvoltmeters, and picoammeters. The company expanded steadily throughout the ‘50s and ‘60s, outgrowing its leased space several times. Growing weary of being forced to repeatedly relocate, Keithley eventually built its own corporate headquarters and manufacturing facility, moving to the Cleveland suburb of Solon in 1967. Keithley introduced its first digital multimeter (DMM), the Model 160, in 1970, and we currently have three families of DMMs (the Series 2000 DMMs, the Series 2700 DMM/Data Acquisition systems, and Series 3700A DMM/Switch systems), giving customers a choice of LXI, Ethernet, GPIB, USB and/or digital I/O interfaces, as well as a variety of built-in functions tailored to their specific applications. Today, Keithley is a world leader in an expanding range of advanced electrical test instruments and systems. Our customers are scientists and engineers in the worldwide electronics industry involved with advanced materials research, semiconductor device development and fabrication, and the production of end products such as portable wireless devices. The value we provide them is a combination of products for their critical measurement needs and a rich understanding of their applications to improve the quality of their products and reduce their cost of test. In 2010, Keithley Instruments joined Tektronix as part of its test and measurement portfolio. What would Keithley consider to be one of its key innovations in test and measurement technology? Our expanding family of SourceMeter source measurement unit (SMU) instruments has been a key T&M industry innovation Figure 1: Mark Hoersten, Keithley’s Vice President - Marketing since we introduced the first models back in the late 1980s. Essentially, Keithley SourceMeter instruments are fastresponse, read-back voltage and current sources with high accuracy measurement capabilities, all tightly integrated in a single instrument. They’re used for circuit and

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of EPN April 2012

Cover
RS Components
Contents
Edito
Bergquist
Contents Web
LEMO
New Products
Traco electronic
Panasonic
Digikey
Digikey
International Rectifier
Cables & connectors
Hirose
Mouser
Adtech Ceramics
International Rectifier
RF & Wireless
Digikey
New Products
Teseq
Fischer Connectors
Analog Devices
Tech report
Automotive Electronics
Digikey
Smartgrid
Coilcraft
Sensor & Test
Renewable Energy
Digikey
40th anniversary interview
Industrial Automation
Digikey
New products
PCIM
Hannover
Test corner
Power perspective
Distribution spotlight

EPN April 2012

https://www.nxtbook.com/reedbusiness/epn/2013EPNMarch
https://www.nxtbook.com/reedbusiness/epn/2013EPNFebruary
https://www.nxtbook.com/reedbusiness/epn/TestEPN_IAN
https://www.nxtbook.com/reedbusiness/epn/2013EPNJanuary
https://www.nxtbook.com/reedbusiness/epn/2012EPNDecember
https://www.nxtbook.com/reedbusiness/epn/2012EPNSupplementNovember
https://www.nxtbook.com/reedbusiness/epn/2012EPN_November
https://www.nxtbook.com/reedbusiness/epn/2012EPNOctober
https://www.nxtbook.com/reedbusiness/epn/2012EPNSeptember
https://www.nxtbook.com/reedbusiness/epn/2012EPNAugust
https://www.nxtbook.com/reedbusiness/epn/2012EPNJuly
https://www.nxtbook.com/reedbusiness/epn/2012EPNJune
https://www.nxtbook.com/reedbusiness/epn/2012EPNSupplementMay
https://www.nxtbook.com/reedbusiness/epn/2012EPNMay
https://www.nxtbook.com/reedbusiness/epn/2012EPNApril
https://www.nxtbook.com/reedbusiness/epn/2012EPNMarch
https://www.nxtbookmedia.com