The Best in Test

Place a PowerDNA I/O cube wherever you need it, connect the cube to a PowerDNA central controller (PCI or PXI) with an Ethernet link, and you have a remote data-acquisition system. You complete the system by adding analog or digital I/O modules and connecting the I/O signals. Cubes can accept either three or six of the available types of I/O cards: analog inputs, analog outputs, temperature, digital I/O, and serial ports. Each cube runs its own real-time operating system and can take control of the Ethernet link to get your data to you on time.

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Boundary Scan Probe Handheld Tool
Goepel Electronic, www.goepel.com

Designed to speed diagnostic debugging and structural verification of boundary-scan designs, the Boundary Scan Probe handheld instrument features various modes for the static and dynamic test of weak logic levels while providing simultaneous measurement feedback. LEDs indicate driven and measured levels, which are accessible via the integrated IEEE 1149.1 TAP interface.

The SSPE, a source-synchronous pin-electronics option for the Tiger SOC test platform, delivers comprehensive functional at-speed production test for parallel differential buses such as HyperTransport and Rapid I/O. SSPE maximizes quality, yield, and overall economics for manufacturers and designers requiring high fault coverage. With SSPE, data is latched with its "same-cycle" associated device clock, reducing jitter and widening the measured data eye to increase yield.

Get those PCI Express designs off the ground with the PETracer, a protocol analyzer that lets you capture and analyze packets in both bus directions. Insert the PETracer's interposer card and midbus probe into a PCI Express motherboard and get access to the serial bus' signals. The analyzer's software decodes transaction layer packets, data-link layer packets, and PCI Express primitives. One PETracer lets you perform bidirectional decodes on one, two, or four bus "lanes" or on one eight-lane unidirectional decode. For an eight-lane bidirectional decode, you need two PETracers.

The N4901A bit-error-rate tester makes measurements at data rates to 13.5 Gbits/s. You can use the instrument to test data streams such as 10 Gigabit Ethernet, PCI Express, and Fibre Channel. The instrument generates PRBS data streams at up to 231–1 bits and performs BER measurements, provides eye diagrams with mask tests, and performs jitter analysis such as random and deterministic jitter extraction. It also performs clock-data recovery, eliminating the need for a separate instrument.

The S600DC/RF Series parametric testers measure critical device parameters during product and process development and in production. The systems' 40-GHz capabilities provide for accurate, automated, wafer-level S-parameter measurements. The RF capability combines with the system's 10-fA measurement capability and 300-mm automation to provide parametric tests at 65-nm technology nodes and beyond.

Unless your wireless phone provides good voice quality, nobody will buy it. GL's wireless voice-quality tester uses the most popular testing algorithms (PSQ, PSQM, PSQM+, and PAM5) to help you evaluate voice quality in your wireless products. With this tester, you remove the subjective nature of voice-quality testing. You perform voice-quality tests with two laptop PCs; both PCs connect to wireless phones so you can test the voice quality in both directions over a wireless network. Each PC sends and receives reference voices, analyzes them, and reports the results.

TopCAT (Topology and Cluster Analysis Technology) for the ScanWorks boundary-scan environment speeds automatic test generation. It analyzes a PCB schematic to identify the nonscan devices that are candidates for boundary-scan cluster tests. Benchmark tests on a board with almost 9000 nets, more than 40,000 solder joints, and approximately 6000 components (including more than 60 memory clusters and more than 40 logic clusters) showed that boundary-scan test development time could shrink to less than a day.

When you need signal conditioning, look to the 90IP, a four-slot chassis that holds programmable filter and amplifier cards. With the 90PF two-channel filter card, you can remove unwanted signals prior to digitizing them while adding less than –100 dB of distortion from 0.1 Hz to 300 kHz. The two-channel 90PGA amplifier card provides up to 60 dB of gain with a 1-MHz bandwidth. The 90IP chassis can operate as a stand-alone instrument or under PC control through its GPIB and RS-232 ports.

The R&S SMU200A vector signal generator employs a two-path design that combines two digitally modulated signal generators, offering outputs up to 6 GHz and 3 GHz, respectively. Consequently, a single SMU200A can serve applications that traditionally required two signal generators. The instrument features a fully digital I/Q baseband section; the I/Q modulator has a 200-MHz bandwidth.

The industry's first ATE system based on the Semiconductor Test Consortium's Openstar platform, the T2000 is designed to test SOC and other complex devices embedded in computer, communications, and consumer-electronics products. The T2000 uses a Windows 2000-based operating system, and users can employ either C++ or the Openstar Test Programming Language (OTPL) for their test programs. The first system in the series includes 250-MHz digital modules.

Using Ixia's Gigabit Ethernet load modules, the IxVPN performance validation test suite generates and analyzes traffic on virtual private networks. You can test secure gateways by setting up tens of thousands of VPN "tunnels" and simulating traffic over protocol layers 4 through 7. Thus, you can verify the performance of gateways using complete top-to-bottom protocol-layer traffic. The test suite can validate tunnel capacity, tunnel setup rate, and tunnel attempt failures through real-time statistics and test logs. You can create custom tests by writing Tcl scripts.

The Matrox Morphis includes a hardware accelerator for JPEG2000 (the emerging standard for wavelet-based compression/decompression), making it suitable for applications with extensive archiving requirements. It combines ultra-fast channel switching among as many as 16 cameras. The Morphis captures from NTSC, PAL, RS-170, and CCIR video sources, and it supports simultaneous acquisition of two live video streams.

Consisting of the 12-bit Sigma 30, the 8-bit Sigma 60, and the mixed-mode Sigma 90, the Sigma Series of scopes gives you four or eight analog channels in a Windows-based scope. You can perform data analysis right on the scope with Windows-based software such as Excel or Matlab. You can also combine two single-ended channels into a differential channel, thus eliminating ground loops and the need for a separate differential amplifier. A 10.4-in. touch-screen display gives you access to all scope functions while providing easy-to-view signals.

The DuraPlus fine-pitch epoxy probe card can reduce cost of ownership while increasing bond yields. Designed to meet the needs of short product cycles, DuraPlus cards are available with pad-pitch capability to 35 µm (inline), 25x50 µm (2- or 3-row staggered), and 30x60 µm (4-row staggered). When combined with a nondestructive cleaning process, the DuraPlus helps reduce bond-pad damage, improve signal integrity, decrease cleaning cycles, and increase card life.

The 3000 Series brings RF measurements to PXI. The modular test suite includes RF PXI modules that let you test wireless base station transmitters and receivers as well as handsets. The series consists of a 3-GHz RF synthesizer, a 2.5-GHz RF signal generator, a 3-GHz RF digitizer, and 2.5-GHz RF combiner. Software support includes libraries for testing base-station transmitters and receivers and mobile amplifiers, and for performing spectral analysis. The libraries let you develop custom test applications in any Windows-based programming language.

The Model E4 supports a thermographic JPEG file format that allows comprehensive post-processing of images on the camera or on a PC. It includes three independently movable target spots—configurable in real-time or during post-processing. Ambient temperature compensation ensures ±2°C or ±2% accuracy from –20°C to +900°C under varying ambient temperature conditions; the 60-Hz scan speed allows true real-time video and minimizes target blur with relative motion of target vs. camera.

Housed in a PXI chassis, NI's 100-Msamples/s test platform can give you an arbitrary waveform generator, a digitizer, a digital I/O source, a switching module, and a timing and synchronization module. A synchronization and memory core, built into each module, provides synchronous measurements through shared clocks and triggers. Thus, you can synchronize measurements to stimulus signals, or you can program a fixed time between stimuli and measurements. You can use the platform in a wide variety of applications, including embedded systems, wireless products, and automotive electronics.

With its 7-GHz analog bandwidth and 43-ps risetime, the top end of the TDS7000B Series captures and analyzes data streams running at 4.25 Gbits/s. That bandwidth preserves a signal's quality so the scope can perform measurements such as jitter analysis and power analysis. With a maximum 20-Gsamples/s digitizing rate, the TDS7704B scope can also capture real-time transient signals such as electrostatic discharge (ESD). The scope's open Windows operating system lets you load and run your own data-analysis software.

The Automatiq system is a PC-based functional test system with an integrated suite of hardware and software tools that enable users to quickly capture test designs, build test fixtures, write test programs, and automatically run functional tests. The Automatiq Test System can replace one-of-a kind, custom-built, rack-and-stack testers with an affordable desktop platform (from $8995, including software and test fixture kits).

The Dash 2EZ data recorder does more than just display waveforms. It contains programmable low-pass, high-pass, notch, and rms filters that let you isolate specific signal characteristics. CompactFlash memory cards store data and move those data to a PC for analysis. The AstroView X software lets you run FFTs on your data, or you can export your data into several formats. Each isolated analog channel can digitize at speeds up to 10 ksamples/s. An isolated DC-input module lets you connect most sensors, strain gages, and transducers.

SigmaSure is a suite of Web-architected software applications for the comprehensive real-time capture, aggregation, and analysis of test and process data across globally dispersed organizations throughout a product lifecycle. It employs its vendor's "any data, any tester, anywhere" technology, which supports data gathering from any location regardless of existing hardware and software.

Designed to turn inspection and test data into intelligent repair and analysis information, eM-Repair is a shop-floor data collection and analysis software tool that empowers electronics manufacturers to improve yields and reduce defects in real time. It provides an advanced visual method for collecting circuit-board assembly data, replacing traditional data-collection methods that relied on written notes or manual keyboard entry.

Running on Spirent's SmartBits data generator/analyzer, the TeraRouting 3.0 application turns the SmartBits unit into a functional and performance tester for terabit routers. The SmartBits tester simulates other routers in a network. Thus, it performs router tests under extreme conditions and produces real-time and final test reports. Using Excel, you can track the router's performance throughout a test, then produce reports such as a frame-rate graph following a test. Because router testing requires protocols, the software adds protocols such as multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) and virtual private network (VPN).

SafeTest protection technologies enable Teradyne's TestStation in-circuit test system to perform safe, reliable test of today's new low-voltage devices, whose smaller sizes and lower maximum voltage thresholds make them vulnerable to over-voltage and over-current during powered-up testing. SafeTest addresses this vulnerability by providing real-time back-drive current measurement and by giving users the ability to set programmable limits for back-drive current level and duration.

Fusion HFi leverages LTX's patented scalable, single-platform Fusion architecture, enabling compatibility with current Fusion Systems' hardware, software, and load boards. Fusion HFi offers 2.5-Gbits/s digital channels on a standard pin. Custom IC development reduces component count by 85%, while new packaging and a modular thermal-management system lowers board and interconnect count by more than 50%.

"Handyscope" is an appropriate name for this instrument, a digitizer with software that can operate as a two-channel DMM, scope, spectrum analyzer, or transient recorder. The Handyscope can store up to 128 ksamples of data. Its function-generator output lets you produce test waveforms such as sines, triangles, and squares. The Handyscope connects to a PC though a USB 2.0 port and requires no external power supply. The Handyscope is available in five models with sampling rates from 5 Msamples/s to 100 Msamples/s, all with 12-bit resolution.

The first single instrument to provide simultaneous jamming on L1 and L2 or L5 frequencies, the GPS7500 provides a 164.5-dB on/off ratio based on Noise Com's digital-noise, arbitrary-waveform, and proprietary-switching technology. The GPS7500 can generate low-phase-noise, high-power out-of-band interference without obscuring signals in the GPS band, thereby isolating the test of the GPS receiver from undesirable phase-noise effects.

DAQStreaming is a high-speed data recorder that can stream data to its 36.7-Gbyte hard disk at a sustained rate of 40 Mbytes/s. It accomplishes this feat using industry-standard SCSI devices rather than proprietary methods. The recorder comes in analog and digital models. The DAQStreaming-A1 records analog signals at 20 Msamples/s (one channel), 10 Msamples/s (two channels), and 5 Msamples/s (four channels). The digital model, DAQStreaming-D1, can record 16 logic channels at 20 Msamples/s or 32 channels at 10 Msamples/s.

The SmarTest Program Generator CTL Browser is the industry's first tool to employ the proposed Core Test Language (CTL) standard (IEEE P1450.6) to automatically generate ATE test programs. This software tool links emerging EDA tools for core-based design to the Agilent 93000 SOC Series platform. CTL Browser provides an intuitive user interface and powerful CTL parser to streamline and automate test program creation for multi-core SOCs.

The Model 4530 RF power meter includes operating modes that save power readings into a memory buffer to facilitate high-speed production test of, for example, the power-control capabilities of cellular handsets. With traditional power meters, this test is performed by incrementing the transmitter power, taking a filtered measurement, and then querying the power meter to return the data to the host. In contrast, the 4530 can capture time-varying RF power at 20-MHz bandwidths in pseudo real time.

With the MP1590A, you can get a grip on optical network performance at bit rates from 1.5 Mbits/s to 10.7 Gbits/s. A Poisson random-error insertion and a variable optical output power function let you make forward-error correction measurements on optical transmission equipment. The instrument also stresses optical networks by adding controlled jitter to a data stream. The instrument's 10.7-Gbits/s top speed lets you make ITU-T jitter measurements at the full 10-Gbits/s Ethernet physical data rate. An external trigger output lets an oscilloscope trigger on errors so you can view eye diagrams.

The new version of FastScan cuts test-pattern-generation time from weeks to days and, in some cases, from days to hours. New at-speed test capabilities improve defect detection for nanometer designs, while enhanced compression capabilities reduce the amount of test data required for these additional tests. FastScan also allows users to employ a DUT's internal PLL clocks, enabling accurate tests even at speeds in excess of the tester's operating frequency.