Agilent Inc. (A - Analyst Report) is collaborating with the University of Washington (UW) to build a new laboratory, which will house new radio frequency (RF) and microwave equipment that will be used for teaching purposes.

Agilent will provide some of the latest test equipments, such as its FieldFox RF combination analyzers, 89600 VSA software and EEs of EDA software along with RF equipment.

The laboratory will be used for RF and microwave technology research, which may become useful in applications such as electrical engineering and communication technologies, which are evolving rapidly. The collaboration is expected to be beneficial for the students of the University as they can access latest technology and equipment used in the industry, which will in turn increase their employability.

Agilent’s success at leading universities comes from its superior technology and comprehensive portfolio. The company regularly updates and upgrades its portfolio to maintain its leadership position.

As per a report by Compound Semiconductor, the RF component market may reach $4.7 billion by 2016 due to rapid adoption of RF components in mobiles (i.e. from low cost models to high end smart phone 3G/LTE models).

Agilent’s revenues in the third quarter were flat sequentially and up 1.9% year over year, short of management’s expectations of a 2–3% sequential increase ($1.77 billion to $1.79 billion). The newly-added Diagnostics and Genomics segment accounted for 9.0% of revenues in the last quarter, up 47.2% sequentially.

Currently, Agilent Technologies has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Other test equipment companies, such as National Instruments Corporation (NATI - Snapshot Report) with a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), and Ametek Inc. (AME - Snapshot Report) and On Semiconductor (ONNN - Analyst Report) with a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) are also worth considering.