Keithley Instruments is a measurement and instrument company headquartered in

Solon, Ohio Solon ( ) is a city in southeastern Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States. A suburb of Cleveland, it is part of the Cleveland metropolitan area. According to the 2020 census, the population of Solon was 24,262. The city has been recognized by ''M ...

, that develops, manufactures, markets, and sells data acquisition products, as well as complete systems for high-volume production and assembly testing. In September, 2010, the company agreed to sell itself to the

Danaher Corporation Danaher Corporation is an American globally diversified conglomerate with its headquarters in Washington, D.C. The company designs, manufactures, and markets professional, medical, industrial, and commercial products and services. The company's ...

, a

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

-based conglomerate, for $21.60 per share. It was soon merged with Tektronix, Inc, which had been acquired by Danaher in 2007, and now exists wholly as a brand of Tektronix.

History

Joseph F. Keithley founded Keithley Instrument in 1946. His first product, the "Phantom Repeater," amplified low-level electric 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. The product enjoyed some success in sales, but it was the next product, an electrometer, that clinched the future for Keithley's fledgling company.

General

The company designs, develops, manufactures and markets electronic instruments and systems geared to the specialized needs of electronics manufacturers for production testing, process monitoring, product development, and research. The company has approximately 500 products used to source, measure, connect, control or communicate direct current (DC), radio frequency (RF), or optical signals. Product offerings include integrated systems solutions, instruments, and personal computer (PC) plug-in boards that can be used as system components or as stand-alone solutions. The company's markets are engineers, technicians, and scientists in manufacturing, product development, and research functions. Keithley operates throughout North America, Asia, and Europe. It develops new solutions for the broader electronics industry, as well as electronic manufacturing production test, semiconductor, telecommunications/wireless and research/education.

Products

Keithley Instruments' major product lines included testing and measurement products such as

electrometer An electrometer is an electrical instrument for measuring electric charge or electrical potential difference. There are many different types, ranging from historical handmade mechanical instruments to high-precision electronic devices. Modern e ...

voltmeter A voltmeter is an instrument used for measuring electric potential difference between two points in an electric circuit. It is connected in parallel. It usually has a high resistance so that it takes negligible current from the circuit. Ana ...

signal generator A signal generator is one of a class of electronic devices that generates electrical signals with set properties of amplitude, frequency, and wave shape. These generated signals are used as a stimulus for electronic measurements, typically used i ...

data acquisition Data acquisition is the process of sampling signals that measure real-world physical conditions and converting the resulting samples into digital numeric values that can be manipulated by a computer. Data acquisition systems, abbreviated by the acro ...

, and production and benchtop parametric testers and analyzers.

Historical highlights

* 1946 - Founded in

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

, U.S.A., by Joseph F. Keithley * 1950 - First employee hired ** John Yeager, the first employee, died January 10, 2018. * 1964 - Moved headquarters to Solon, OH * 1966 - German office opened * 1967 - UK office opened * 1991 - Joseph P. Keithley becomes chairman * 1995 - Listed on

New York Stock Exchange The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed c ...

* 1998 -

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

office opened * 2000 - Korea office opened * 2003 - Santa Rosa, California RF Design center opened (sold to

Agilent Technologies Agilent Technologies, Inc. is an American life sciences company that provides instruments, software, services, and consumables for the entire laboratory workflow. Its global headquarters is located in Santa Clara, California. Agilent was establi ...

2009) * 2005 -

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

office opened * 2009 - S600 Series parametric test product line discontinued * 2010 - Agreed to sell itself to the

, many operations merged with

Tektronix Tektronix, Inc., historically widely known as Tek, is an American company best known for manufacturing test and measurement devices such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and video and mobile test protocol equipment. Originally an independent ...

* 2011 - Announcement that most manufacturing will shift from Ohio to China

References

External links

*
"Understanding Current Switching’s Special Needs"
Cigoy, Dale. '' Electronic Products''. 2009.
"Standards Help Ensure Order for Nanotechnology"
Tucker, Jonathan. ''Evaluation Engineering''. June 2009.
"Low Level Measurements Handbook: Precision DC Current, Voltage, and Resistance Measurements"
Keithley Instruments, Inc. 7th edition, 2016. {{Tektronix Technology companies established in 1946 Technology companies disestablished in 2010 Electronic test equipment manufacturers Defunct companies based in Ohio 1946 establishments in Ohio 2010 disestablishments in Ohio American companies established in 1946 American companies disestablished in 2010