Keithley NewTestSeq WP free download

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New Test Sequencing Instruments Lower Cost of Test for Device Manufacturers Andrew Armutat Product Marketing Keithley Instruments, Inc. Business Pressures Challenge Test Engineers Most electronic manufacturers face a common set of business problems. Global competition exerts downward pressure on prices, while increasing the features and functionality of products. This takes place within ever-shortening product life cycles. Narrowing profit margins then drive efforts to reduce product costs wherever possible. This includes the cost of testing, which tends to grow with product complexity. These forces are a significant challenge to test and production engineers. The integration of analog, digital, and even RF circuitry on a single System-On-a-Chip (SOC) means more circuitry in less space and higher pin counts on each new generation of devices. There is a similar push in discrete devices, with the consolidation of multiple components on a single chip for higher density and smaller size. Higher pin counts require more test channels to maintain acceptable throughput, while test system density must also increase within limited production space. These factors push the limits of test technology. In addition, the concentration of testing at the functional level in final production, as we often see today, can hurt profits because failed units carry a heavy burden of sunk production costs. This calls for a shift to more up-front testing to eliminate bad parts earlier in the process. Unfortunately, "big iron" Keithley Instruments, Inc. 28775 Aurora Road Cleveland, Ohio 44139 (440) 248-0400 Fax: (440) 248-6168 www.keithley.com A G r e a t e r M e a s u r e o f C o n f i d e n c e end-of-line functional test systems generally are not efficient solutions for testing components and modules in the early stages of production. Currently, production ATE systems can be categorized as bulky, high cost mainframe- based systems, slow instrument-based systems using PC control, or fast instrument-based systems that are extremely complex to develop. None of these solutions are optimized for either front-end or