Developing an optimized general purpose interface board for an automated test equipment

Date

2012-05

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Abstract

The cost of testing in semiconductor industry is always growing because of the ever increasing complexity of semiconductor devices. The time required to introduce a device in market is reducing because of the highly competitive semiconductor industry. This puts additional pressure to develop efficient testing strategies to enhance productivity. Keeping the test cost low is another challenge to have greater profit margin for a device. This report takes up the challenge of shortening development cycle time while simultaneously bringing down the cost of test. The approach is by an efficient design of RASP (Remote Access Spring Probe) to be as generic as possible. The RASP is the interface between the device under test (DUT) and Automated Test Equipment (ATE), which in this case is the VLCT (Very Low Cost Tester) of Texas Instruments. This report also addresses about various design restrictions accompanying the tester, and layout modifications which were handled during the development phase of the RASP. The Mentor Graphics Design Capture tool was used extensively to develop the board. Finally, testing of the MAX3221 transceiver device on the VLCT using this board has been taken up and the results compared against the existing solution to verify its accomplishments.

Description

Keywords

Electronic engineering, Electronic test instruments, Semiconductor industry

Citation