Help Choose the 2005
Test Engineer of the Year
Cast your vote online to honor the contributions that test engineers make to the electronics industry.
Staff -- Test & Measurement World, 9/1/2004
Test is a crucial step in product development and manufacture, and the engineers who handle tasks ranging from prototype debug to production quality control and field failure analysis are the true heroes of the electronics industry. Test engineers' efforts help to ensure that the industry delivers functional, high-quality, safe, affordable products that get to market on time.
Voting deadline: See our profile of
Test & Measurement World wants to acknowledge the special contributions that engineering test makes with our second annual "Test Engineer of the Year" award. Sponsored by National Instruments, the award carries with it a $20,000 educational grant presented to an engineering school designated by the winning engineer. We will present the award at our "Best in Test" awards celebration during the 2005 APEX Show (February 22–24; Anaheim, CA). A story describing the accomplishments of the winning engineer will appear in our March 2005 issue.
November 2, 2004.
Chris Grachanen ,
the 2004 Test Engineer of the Year.
What qualities does it take to be selected as North America's premier test engineer? You be the judge.
Test & Measurement World editors have selected six candidates from among the many outstanding engineers recommended by industry sources. Now it's your turn. Please review the accompanying profiles of the six nominees. Then go to www.tmworld.com/teoty and honor your profession by voting for the 2005 Test Engineer of the Year. Deadline: November 2, 2004.
INSTRUMENT TEST
Brian Dahl
Agilent Technologies
"When a lab engineer comes to Brian with a special project or special test need, he develops a method to do the test," writes a co-worker. Dahl's division manufactures oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and their probes. He performs numerous environmental tests on new designs. The tests include parametric measurements on fully assembled units and their components. Dahl is the primary test engineer for temperature, humidity, shock, vibration, and HALT tests. He also manages the test lab's schedules and he performs calibration and preventive maintenance on the lab's equipment.
Recently, Dahl took a defunct test system and turned it into a robotic tester. He also located a used HALT chamber, procured it, arranged to have it delivered and installed. With the chamber in place. Dahl trains other engineers on how to perform environmental tests.
BOARD/SUBASSEMBLY TEST
Ted Eaton
Cisco Systems
Eaton's contributions to the giant telecom equipment maker let engineers develop test tools in hours instead of two weeks. The tools perform JTAG tests on non-boundary-scan devices. Active in several boundary-scan standards bodies, Eaton has been in charge of defining a system-level test architecture as well as defining the requirements for third-party JTAG tools. He works closely with test-equipment makers to develop the automation pieces required to meet Cisco's development schedules.
Eaton also contributes to Cisco's design-for test (DFT) program, in which he defined both insertion and verification specifications for IEEE 1149.6 third-party vendors. He developed and implemented a JTAG-based I/O fault-insertion methodology that lets verification engineers insert faults in an operating system. He defined and managed the implementation of at-speed I/O built-in self-test (BIST) for use both at the chip level and system level. Currently, Eaton is working as the lead DFT architect for ASICs with more then 20 million gates.
SEMICONDUCTOR TEST
Marvin Landrum
Texas Instruments
Working with a team of six engineers, Landrum developed a robust test architecture (called "Ace") for mixed-signal wireless devices that increased efficiency, flexibility, modularity, and scalability over previous test architectures. It took years to perfect, but now the Ace architecture includes modular-instrument, test-executive, database, analysis, and reporting components.
Since those beginnings, Landrum's test team, now known as the Ace Group, has grown to 35. He's been promoted to section manager, and other Texas Instruments' divisions now use his system architecture.
Landrum's contributions to Texas Instruments has been recognized by senior management up to the vice-president level. The rapid turnaround time and real-time access to characterization data has benefited designers, test engineers, product engineers and the wireless business unit as a whole. He currently heads a company-wide automation user group, holding internal training sessions within Texas Instruments to educate other test engineers about automation, test, and measurement.
AUTOMOTIVE/ROBOTICS
Anthony Scott Levandowski
University of California at Berkeley
Levandowski's test projects have contributed to the development of automotive control systems. He entered the 2004 DARPA Grand Challenge, a 210-mile race by autonomous vehicles across the desert sponsored by the Defense Department, but rather than design the usual four-wheel vehicle for the event, Levandowski built the "world's first autonomous motorcycle." He designed and tested a multitude of systems to balance, navigate, steer, and manage the motorcycle's overall operation.
The motorcycle systems required testing of new algorithms that perform precise measurements and timing of sensors and vehicle controls. For those tests, Levandowski designed a high-speed sampling program to collect data from multiple instruments. He also tested PCB functionality as part of a sensor-interface board's design verification. He evaluated the effects of ripple current and temperature changes on the vehicle. As part of the testing, he performed packet loss/corruption analysis over a short-range Ethernet link in an EMI-rich environment.
ENVIRONMENTAL TEST
Alex Porter
Intertek ETL Entela
Alex Porter knows how to accelerate life tests. Because of that knowledge, he performed testing for the Ford GT high-performance sports car. Since 1996, he's developed accelerated testing methods for mechanical components and systems. His three patents cover accelerated test equipment for failure-mode validation testing.
Porter also wrote Accelerated Testing and Validation, a book on accelerated life testing that Elsevier published in 2004. He's also written more than 30 articles and technical papers on accelerated testing, and he's taught several hundred engineers on the topic through Entela's Accelerated Test Methods seminars. Porter also teaches the course "Accelerated Test Methods for Ground and Aerospace Vehicle Development" for the Society of Automotive Engineers. Furthermore, he co-chairs the IEEE's 2004 Workshop on Accelerated Stress Testing & Reliability.
TELECOM TEST
Gary Ringer
JDS Uniphase
Ringer test the forefront of technology: 10-Gbps and 40-Gbps communications components. He constantly looks for ways to cut costs and improve throughput when he develops new test hardware and software. In his five years at JDS Uniphase, he defined and mapped the telecom product test process. From that mapping, he improved both product flows and test procedures.
But Ringer also went further. He standardized ATE software, which reduced vendor dependency and improved system up time. Now, he's developing IVI drivers to make the next generation of his company's ATE system more robust and reliable. His drivers should let test engineers replace obsolete test equipment with new instruments while minimizing software changes.
Ringer's contributions go beyond looking at process improvements. When he couldn't get the test equipment he needed, Ringer created his own. For example, he developed specialized test processes and modules such as a 3-Gbps bit-error-rate tester (BERT). He's also working with vendors to develop an extinction ratio correlation algorithm.
| Voting deadline: November 2, 2004. Vote today! |
