Product Update

The MESA 4I34 is a general-purpose programmable I/O card for the PC/104 bus. Available in 64- and 48-bit versions, it employs a Xilinx FPGA into which you can download logic over the PC/104 bus to create flexible, specialized I/O functions. Standard built-in functions include 64-channel event capture, an eight-channel host-based servo-motor controller, a four-channel FPGA-resident servo-motor controller, and an eight-channel 32-bit counter/timer that runs at 100 MHz. The card comes with VHDL source code for the built-in functions. I/O lines are 5-V tolerant and can sink 24 mA. Four-layer circuit-card construction minimizes EMI. Price: $123 in quantities of 100. Mesa Electronics, Richmond, CA. 510-223-9272; www.mesanet.com.

The Model NC143 thermocouple reference junction eliminates the need for ice or electromechanical temperature-simulation devices. Drawing only 100 µW from 1-, 1.35-, 5-, or 10-VDC supplies, the units operate from –65°C to +125°C with temperature stability better than ±0.25°C at any stabilized ambient temperature between –54°C and +100°C. Standard output impedance is less than 250 Ω; other output impedances are available. Each unit measures 1x1x0.3125 in. The units come with solder terminals or leads. Base price: $84.10 in quantities of 100. Hades Manufacturing, Farmingdale, NY. 631-249-4244.

The Model 9133 provides a blackbody target you can use as a stable temperature source when calibrating handheld optical pyrometers. The instrument will produce temperatures between –30°C (–22°F) and +150°C (+302°F) under normal ambient conditions. The factory-calibrated unit provides an accuracy of ±0.4°C (±0.7°F) over its entire temperature range. You can set the calibrator from its front panel to produce temperatures in 0.1°C increments. If you require greater accuracy in your calibration measurements, you can place a platinum resistance thermometer (PRT) in a temperature well behind the blackbody radiator and use the PRT with an external instrument.

A fitting on the front panel lets you flush the system with a dry gas to prevent condensation and frost on the calibration target. The 2.25-in. (57-mm) target provides a large field of view for pyrometers that have various size sensors. After the temperature stabilizes, simply point your pyrometer at the blackbody radiator, and take a temperature and adjust your instrument. The 9133 can change its temperature from one extreme to the other in about 15 min.

Price: $3495. Hart Scientific, American Fork, UT. 801-763-1600; www.hartscientific.com.

Measuring the low DC currents present during insulation testing, photodiode testing, and sensor characterization often requires instruments that can operate in the picoamp and nanoamp ranges. Optoelectronic devices, for example, may produce a current of less than 100 nA. Most bench DMMs lack the sensitivity to make such measurements. The 5½-digit autoranging Model 6485 Picoammeter offers eight measurement ranges from 20 fA to 20 mA. The instrument's low input-voltage drop (<200 µV) lets it make accurate measurements whether you're making I-V measurements on wafers or working with sensors that operate in 4–20 mA current loops.

The Model 6485 can take as many as 1000 measurements/s, and its data buffer can accumulate 2500 time-stamped readings. The instrument will also save minimum and maximum readings and standard-deviation statistics. You can set the instrument to display values relative to a baseline value or to display the logarithm of the absolute value of a current measurement. By dividing an external reference voltage by a measured current, the instrument can produce resistance values.

A built-in Trigger Link interface lets you synchronize two or more instruments, and you also can control the instrument using a standard IEEE 488 interface. The Model 6485 also comes with an RS-232 serial interface.

Price: $1495. Keithley Instruments, Cleveland, OH. 440-248-0400; www.keithley.com.

Atrenta's SpyGlass DFT, an addition to its SpyGlass predictive-analysis tool, helps designers identify at the register transfer level (RTL) testability issues that would normally appear only at the gate level. SpyGlass DFT includes rules for automatic test-pattern generation (ATPG) and built-in self-test (BIST) insertion. If RTL designers don't properly apply testability rules at the initial design stage, the design can have poor test coverage, or even be untestable, until extensive changes are made. By helping to ensure that designers write their RTL code to comply with testability rules before lengthy synthesis and simulation cycles, SpyGlass DFT can cut weeks or months off design cycles, eliminating or reducing gate-level debug and costly schedule delays.

Furthermore, by fixing problems at the RTL, SpyGlass DFT helps to ensure that RTL code accurately represents final silicon, allowing trouble-free reuse of the RTL code. (In contrast, DFT problems detected at the gate level have traditionally been fixed at the gate level, and gate-level updates have rarely been reflected back to the original RTL description. Consequently, final, workable, and testable gate-level designs have not been adequately represented by the original, uncorrected RTL code.)

SpyGlass DFT includes 66 standard checks. It can identify sequential feedback loops that can't be initialized, three-state buses with contention problems, scan chains with mixed edges, and problematic feedback loops. SpyGlass DFT can analyze a design before the addition of DFT logic to pinpoint where basic controls must be added. As designers add DFT features, SpyGlass DFT verifies that these changes function properly and highlights additional required changes.

Designers can also add custom rules that help SpyGlass check for structural problems or special DFT considerations. Designers can use either the Perl or C programming languages for this customization. Designers can also cross-probe between RTL and schematic views to quickly understand the issues and how they might best be fixed. Unlike some standard rule checkers, SpyGlass DFT does not overwhelm users with false error reports.

SpyGlass DFT adds two engines to the three existing engines of the SpyGlass predictive-analysis tool. The three SpyGlass engines include RTL checking (often called linting, the line-by-line semantic check of the code), local-structure checking (a fast synthesis engine that checks the design's hierarchy), and global-structure checking (the flattening of the design to find complex structural problems).

SpyGlass DFT adds a functional-analysis engine—a cycle-based simulator that can simulate test-mode conditions and evaluate design functionality, not just design connectivity. For example, it can set a test mode and then verify that internally generated clocks have been properly bypassed for scan operations.

SpyGlass DFT also adds a testability-analysis engine, which checks for controllability and observability as well as initialization issues for BIST compliance. This engine also provides an efficient means to identify the amount of shadowed logic on a RAM-by-RAM basis as well as the amount of logic blocked when adding test mode controls.

Price: $25,000 per year as an option to SpyGlass (which costs from $60,000 per year). Atrenta, San Jose, CA. 408-453-3333; www.atrenta.com.

National Instruments has upped its speed record for PCI-bus multifunction data-acquisition cards with the NI 6115. The card works in applications that require few channels but need simultaneous sampling, analog outputs, and digital I/O.

The card simultaneously samples four 12-bit analog inputs at up to 10 Msamples/s and has a 5-MHz bandwidth. You can store either 16 Msamples or 32 Msamples, depending on the memory option you choose. The card simultaneously samples all four channels through four dedicated ADCs. Each channel also contains its own gain amplifier, letting you use different gains without waiting for a single amplifier to change its gain setting. The amplifiers let you select input ranges from ±0.2 V to ±42 V. Each channel contains an individual low-pass filter, which lets you eliminate aliasing. The NI-6115 also has two 12-bit analog outputs, eight digital I/O channels, and two 24-bit counter-timer channels.

Price: $3595. National Instruments, Austin, TX. 800-433-3488; www.ni.com.

Tektronix has provided a solution for engineers who need to verify the integrity of high-speed serial communications signals. The TDS6604 can simultaneously sample two channels at 20 Gsamples/s with a bandwidth of 6 GHz.

Because Tektronix has aimed the TDS6604 at digital communications signal measurements, the scope includes masks for testing. Mask testing lets you verify a signal's compliance to standards such as IEEE 802.3 Ethernet, Fibre Channel, Infiniband, USB 2.0, and IEEE 1394b. The TDS6604 also contains features found in other Tektronix scopes such as serial-pattern clock recovery, 32-bit serial-pattern triggers, and jitter measurements. The scope's acquisition memory is 250,000 samples, which is sufficient for signal-integrity measurements that require you to look at just a few bits at a time. Also, this scope lacks the company's digital phosphor capability because the scope isn't intended for log acquisitions.

The four-channel TDS6604 also borrows the company's iView capability from other scopes. This feature lets you operate the scope in conjunction with the TLA 600 and TLA 700 logic analyzers, letting you see time-correlated views of scope and logic-analyzer signals on the same screen.

Price: $57,500. Tektronix, Beaverton, OR. 800-426-2200 (request code 1250); www.tektronix.com.

Keithley's Model S600DC/RF APT (automated parametric test) system combines DC and RF parametric tests in a single-insertion approach. When used with a suitable test-structure layout, the system can execute independent DC and RF tests in parallel on separate probes. Compatible with 200-mm and 300-mm wafers, the system can test at 10-GHz rates with up to tenfold improvement in throughput compared with typical rack-and-stack systems that perform separate DC and RF tests.

The system integrates an Anritsu self-calibrating vector network analyzer and probe cards from GGB Industries. It operates under the Keithley Test Environment (KTE) software, and test results can be exported to a variety of device-modeling software packages. The system can calculate S-parameters and derive RF measurement data such as maximum frequency, transit time vs. current, bipolar-transistor base resistance, and inductor quality. Inherent DC precision is 1 pA or 10 μV.

Other features include a burnishing algorithm that supports automated cleaning of probe tips. A high-speed system-level measurement process requires only about 2 min making lengthy calibration procedures unnecessary when changing the test frequency or the number of data points.

Base price: $200,000 for an upgrade to existing SC600 systems; $400,000 for a complete S600DC/RF system. Keithley Instruments, Cleveland, OH. 888-534-8453; www.keithley.com.