Keysight, Marvin Test Solutions come together to speed manufacturing of mmWave semiconductors

Keysight Technologies announced this week that its collaboration with Marvin Test Solutions Inc. (MTS) – a supplier of functional test solutions – has resulted in the development of a fast and accurate 5G semiconductor manufacturing test platform.

The two parties focused on advancing beamformer integrated circuit (IC) test technology to help manufacturers of semiconductors accelerate the production of high performance 5G integrated ICs. Marvin integrated Keysight’s PXIe-based Vector Network Analyzer (VNA) to achieve accurate and fast measurements in its TS-960e-5G mmWave Test System.

The Keysight M980xA PXIe Vector Network Analyzer (VNA) meets the most demanding multiport challenges with a true multiport architecture that offers exceptional performance no matter how many ports you use. Gain deeper insights into devices with the widest available line of measurement applications for PXI VNAs, including spectrum analysis and noise figure measurements.

The M980xA Series offers the performance required for testing passive components, amplifiers, mixers or frequency converters. It provides key PXI VNA specifications such as dynamic range, measurement speed, trace noise and temperature stability. 

Keysight’s recently introduced M980xA Series network analyzers offer the scalability required to test multi-port components, front end modules (FEMs) and base stations that rely on beamforming technology. Mobile operators are deploying beamforming technology to extend cellular coverage and deliver higher data rates, leading to improved mmWave 5G network reliability and efficiency. 

To ensure reliable and efficient 5G mmWave communications, the performance of critical elements that form part of the beamformer IC need to be rigorously tested under linear and nonlinear conditions across the entire workflow from design, validation to manufacturing.

“Our collaboration with Marvin Test Solutions demonstrates that scalable production testing of beamformer solutions can be achieved with Keysight’s PXI VNAs,” said Kailash Narayanan, vice president and general manager of Keysight's wireless test group. “We’re excited to help shape the future of 5G mmWave production testing with our beamformer IC test solutions using integrated component and system-level simulation tools to deliver high precision measurements at mmWave frequency bands.”

Trend Micro reveals that over a dozen obfuscated APT33 botnets have been used for extreme narrow targeting

The threat group regularly referred to as APT33 is known to target the oil and aviation industries aggressively, Trend Micro revealed. This threat group has been reported on consistently for years, but recent findings show that the group has been using about a dozen live Command and Control (C&C) servers for extremely narrow targeting. 

APT33 is a suspected Iranian threat group that has carried out operations since at least 2013. The group has targeted organizations across multiple industries in the United States, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea, with a particular interest in the aviation and energy sectors.

The group puts up multiple layers of obfuscation to run these C&C servers in extremely targeted malware campaigns against organizations in the Middle East, the U.S., and Asia.

“We believe these botnets, each comprising a small group of up to a dozen infected computers, are used to gain persistence within the networks of select targets,” Trend Micro wrote in a post this week. 

The malware is rather basic, and has limited capabilities that include downloading and running additional malware. Among active infections in 2019 are two separate locations of a private American company that offers services related to national security, victims connecting from a university and a college in the U.S., a victim most likely related to the U.S. military, and several victims in the Middle East and Asia.

APT33 has also been executing more aggressive attacks over the past few years. For example, for at least two years the group used the private website of a high-ranking European politician (a member of the country’s defense committee) to send spear phishing emails to companies that are part of the supply chain of oil products. Targets included a water facility that is used by the U.S. army for the potable water supply of one of its military bases.

These attacks have likely resulted in concrete infections in the oil industry. For example, in the fall of 2018, Trend Micro observed communications between a U.K.-based oil company with computer servers in the U.K. and India and an APT33 C&C server. 

Another European oil company suffered from an APT33 related malware infection on one of their servers in India for at least three weeks in November and December last year. There were several other companies in oil supply chains that had been compromised in the fall of 2018 as well. These compromises indicate a big risk to companies in the oil industry, as APT33 is known to use destructive malware.