Agilent Technologies (NYSE: A), or Agilent, is a company which designs and manufactures instruments and equipment for measurement and evaluation. The company's headquarters are in Santa Clara, California.

Many of Agilent's predecessor product lines were developed by the American computing company Hewlett-Packard, which was founded in 1939. In 1999, the product lines not directly connected with computers, storage, and imaging were grouped into a separate company (Agilent), the stock of which was offered to the public in an initial public offering. Some sources state that the Agilent IPO was the largest in the history of Silicon Valley.

The company thus created in 1999 was an $8 billion company with about 47,000 employees, manufacturing scientific instruments, semiconductors, optical networking devices, and electronic test equipment for telecom and wireless R&D and production.

Product lines

Agilent's major product lines include:

• Test & Measurement products such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, spectrum analyzers, vector network analyzers, automated optical inspection, automated x-ray inspection (5DX), in-circuit test, CDMA mobile test set, and electronic design automation (EDA) software (EEsof)
• Life Science and Chemical Analysis products such as DNA microarrays, HPLCs, capillary electrophoresis systems, mass spectrometers, and gas chromatographs
• Communications equipment such as LAN/WAN network analyzers Wireline Active Test 12 or HBAs
• Automotive Network Test Tools for CAN, LIN and FlexRay Networks.
• Agilent CertiPrime is Agilent's used electronic test equipment brand. It offers fully remanufactured test equipment with discounts ranging from 20% to 50%.

• In addition to measuring hardware, Agilent has generated and offers comprehensive chemical databases. In January 2009 it announced the availability of a pesticide database covering 1600 compounds, with accurate mass information for each. It also announced the proximite release of similar databases for toxicology and drugs of abuse such as proximite, cannabis, and caffeine.

Research and development

Agilent Technologies has a robust research and development program, Agilent Laboratories, with active research in MEMS, nanotechnology, and Life Sciences.

Investment arm

Agilent Technologies has an active investment group, Agilent Ventures, which invests in high-tech start up companies. Investments include MEMX, Infinera, and Telasics.

Corporate restructuring

In 2001, Agilent Technologies sold its healthcare and medical products organization to Philips Medical Systems. HP Medical Products had been the second oldest part of Hewlett-Packard, acquired in the 1950s. Only the original founding test and measurement organization was older.