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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 back-end processes. In order to remain price competitive, manufacturers
need test techniques, instruments, and systems that allow them to minimize their cost of
testing and the ongoing cost of equipment ownership. In many cases, they are looking for
ways to minimize ownership costs by improving the performance of existing test stands, with
the aim of having them take on more of the test burden. This will help reduce the amount of
high cost, end-of-the-line testing. In short, test system designs must: