The 2001 Best in Test Awards

Cast your vote for Test Product of the Year

Staff -- Test & Measurement World, 12/1/2000

T&MW's editors have selected these 12 products as the best test products announced between November 1, 1999 and October 31, 2000.

Ultima 500 Digital Oscilloscope / Gould Instrument Systems
Gould put a PC running Windows NT into a four-channel, 500-MHz DSO. With Windows NT, you get the connectivity of a PC right in your scope. Connect the scope to an Ethernet port, and get your measurements. Or, connect the Ultima 500 to your PC’s USB port to use a keyboard or mouse, or communicate through an IrDA infrared port. You also can customize your scope’s user interface for specific tasks through ActiveX controls and a programmer’s library. http://www.gouldis.com/.

IHS 1100 Thermal-Control Test Handler / Schlumberger
An effective semiconductor test must simulate—within a few seconds—all the conditions that a device might experience throughout its lifetime. This includes environmental conditions as well as electrical ones—a CMOS transistor’s switching speed degrades 2% for every 10°C temperature rise. To effectively evaluate such devices without excessive, yield-killing guardbanding, the IHS 1100 thermal-control handler can cycle a DUT over a –40 to +125°C temperature range at rates beyond 200°C/s. The handler employs a power-balancing technology based on active conductive temperature control and can absorb 100 W/cm² to minimize the effects of DUT self-heating during at-speed test. Throughput can exceed 8000 devices/hr. http://www.slb.com/

DT Vision Foundry / Data Translation
The DT Vision Foundry software lets you quickly set up and test machine-vision programs and translate them into industrial-strength applications. The latest version of the software includes new tools, support for additional frame grabbers, and enhanced processing algorithms that boost processing speeds. Added tools provide for image classification, contour classification, enhanced searching, and enhanced point-and-click scripting. You can work at three levels: rapid development, custom applications development, and custom tools development. Using DT Vision Foundry, you work with the same algorithms and APIs used for development, but at a level that lets programmers customize and optimize their code. http://www.datatranslation.com/.

MI 4115A Modulated Vector Network Analyzer and Quartet RFIQ ATE Subsystem / Credence Systems
Pure sine waves no longer cut it as test-stimulus waveforms for 3G and Bluetooth digital communications equipment. The MI 4115A MVNA (modulated vector network analyzer) simulates real-world signals, applies them to a unit under test, measures S-parameters, and derives power-envelope data. It acquires 60-Msamples/s and features an 80-dB dynamic range. The MI 4115A is a benchtop instrument based on a modular CompactPCI architecture; Credence has adapted the MVNA technology for production test by incorporating it in the RFIQ subsystem for the company’s Quartet Series mixed-signal ATE systems. http://www.credence.com/

SoftWire 2.0 / SoftWire Technology
Because SoftWire works with Visual Basic, it lets programmers build on their existing skills. But you can choose whether to use a character-based language or a graphical language. You’d choose graphical programming when it makes sense to combine graphical blocks for actions and functions. When graphical programming gets too involved, though, you can use Visual Basic statements. The more than 130 graphical icons, or ActiveX controls, include data-acquisition controls, IEEE 488 controls, user-interface controls, system controls, math controls, and logic controls. Each control comes with input and output connections that let you “wire” it to other blocks. You can easily exchange information with Visual Basic controls using properties defined for each control. http://www.softwiretechnology.com/.

webDAQ/100 Web-Enabled Data-Acquisition System / Capital Equipment
The webDAQ/100 marries data acquisition to a Web server. You can connect this box to your corporate network and remotely control the instrument’s 16 differential analog inputs, 8 analog outputs, 4 digital inputs, and 4 digital outputs with a Web browser. Buttons let you enter values into the outputs and set alarms for the inputs. The webDAQ/100 also can e-mail reports, upload data files to ftp servers, and download files in response to ftp requests. Just get an IP address from your system administrator, and you’re ready to measure. http://www.cec488.com/.

TDS7000 Series Digital Oscilloscopes / Tektronix
Not only did Tek put Windows and its connectivity into a scope, the company raised the DSO performance bar at the same time. The TDS high-end TDS7404 uses silicon-germanium technology to achieve 20-Gsamples/s speed with 4-GHz bandwidth. This scope can display 400,000 waveforms/s, which lets you see intermittent glitches and anomalies in waveforms. The user interface incorporates images that help you set up triggers quickly and easily. http://www.tektronix.com/.

ATEasy 3.0 / Geotest—Marvin Test Systems
A new test-development package aimed at functional-test applications, ATEasy 3.0 takes advantage of reusable components and the familiar operation of Visual Basic. You design user-interface displays using VB-like forms that can contain menus, controls, procedures, and variables. This combination of flexibility and visual tools makes it easy for engineers to reduce development time. By following the company’s Integration Application Framework, you can organize test components to match the architecture of test systems. If you must switch instrument drivers, you won’t need to do any additional programming. The company’s Instrument Interchangeability Technology takes advantage of IVI-compatible instrument drivers, without requiring DLL-based drivers. http://www.geotestinc.com/. 

Cable-ATS Automatic Cable Modem Test System / Spirent Communications
The Cable-ATS combines products from two Spirent Companies—Telecom Analysis Systems (the 8250 Cable Network and Interference Generator) and Netcom Systems (the Smartbits Data Generator). Together with software, these products form a complete system for testing cable modems to DOCSIS specifications for performance and interoperability. The SmartBits data generator simulates upstream and downstream IP packets and detects frame losses. The 8250, the heart of the system, simulates a hybrid fiber-coax-cable network, replacing tens of miles of fiber-optic cable and a mile of copper coax. With this system, cable modem manufacturers no longer need to run cable all around the test lab. http://www.taskit.com/

VersaTenn V Environmental Chamber Controller / Tenney Environmental and Tidal Engineering
Environmental testing is critical to the successful design and production of advanced electronic products. But controlling the required burn-in, temperature/humidity cycling, thermal-shock, vibration, and altitude tests and managing the resulting data can strain already tight product-development cycles to the limit. The VersaTenn V environmental-chamber controller provides a much-needed assist, moving test data around the lab through IEEE 488, RS-232, and RS-485 interfaces; around the factory through Ethernet networking; or around the world over the Internet. Developed by Tidal Engineering and integrated into Tenney test chambers, the controller provides a touch-screen operator interface with a multilanguage, context-sensitive help system. www.tenney.com, http://www.tidaleng.com/.

The best ATE system in the world is useless if you don’t have a way to get signals flowing between it and a DUT. The Pad Series test contactors fill that role for MLF (micro-lead-frame) RFICs. Pad Series contactors employ a patent-pending, center-body-contact pad configuration, which provides for heat dissipation and which acts as a ground plane to reduce overall ground inductance and maintain high signal fidelity. Each contactor’s center MLF pad offers less than 0.2-nH inductance; peripheral pads offer less than 1-nH self-inductance and 0.22-nH mutual inductance. The devices’ –3-dB bandwidths extend to 14 GHz. The contactors’ wiping action breaks through oxides and prevents solder build-up. http://www.johnstech.com/

DFT Compiler / Synopsys
Designers no longer have an excuse for foisting off hard-to-test ASICs onto production departments. The one-pass test-synthesis technology of DFT Compiler enables design teams to efficiently meet their design-for-test goals. DFT Compiler synthesizes testable gates directly from RTL circuit descriptions. Because the software implements DFT within the synthesis environment, designers avoid discrete, iterative logic-synthesis/test-synthesis cycles. This helps eliminate timing violations inserted during test synthesis that then must be addressed at the logic-synthesis stage, necessitating yet another test-synthesis stage. DFT Compiler yields ATPG-ready designs with all test-logic verified and scan design rules checked. DFT Compiler is integrated with the Synopsys Physical Compiler tool, enabling designers to rapidly and transparently generate scan chains. http://www.synopsys.com/

Honorable Mentions
Catalyst Tiger, Teradyne
DACBIST Designer, Fluence Technology
GoLogic Logic Analyzer, NCI
5DX Series 3 X-Ray Inspection System, Agilent Technologies
FXS-160.40 X-Ray Inspection System, Feinfocus Röntgen-Systeme
SM4042 Relay Scanner/Multiplexer, Signametrics
T6573 125-MHz Test System, Advantest
HPB-3 High-Power Burn-In System, Micro Control
HFP Series Active Probes, LeCroy
Insulation Piercing Test Clip, Pomona Electronics
OTS9000 Optical Test System, Tektronix