BTW 2014 STATE OF STRUCTURAL TEST Floyd Conner Product Specialist Sept 2014

Testers provide a stimulus to a probe that contacts the board and measures a response from another probe Traditional Bed-Of-Nails Testers –Used for mid to high volume manufacturing –Requires a fixture and program Flying Probe Testers for NPI and low volume –Used for low volume manufacturing –No fixture required and program is quick to develop STRUCTURAL TEST FUNDAMENTALS HAVE NOT CHANGED IN 40 YRS

Device Technology –More parts in each device –Smaller devices and pads –Lower and faster voltage swings –More reliable parts –Counterfeit parts Board Design –Less and smaller probe points –KHz to GHz affects board layout –More serial parts (Boundary Scan, I2C, SPI, etc) –Life cycles are shorter Companies no longer build their own boards –Reduced cost of manufacturing –Reduced cost of personnel –Reduced control of product quality Structural Test can’t test all boards anymore –Some pads on boards can’t be probed (Cell phones) –DDR3 and above memory can be unstable at ICT WHAT HAS CHANGED IN 30 YEARS

No one wants to pay for insurance –Why pay Contract Manufacturer for bad boards they built –Only asked for 20 boards –Digital parts don’t fail just put them on correctly Different types of insurance –Shorts and Opens (boards still have them) –Analog component Tests (parts fall off or mis-inserted) –Powered Up testing (voltage, frequency, LED) –Digital testing (what vectors, Boundary Scan, programming) –How many boards in what timeframe –Minimal Stress induced due to ICT test (fixture actuation, backdrive) What do you want to pay for? –Only good boards? –How many reworks per board? –How do you know what you are paying for? STRUCTURAL TEST HAS BECOME INSURANCE

Flying Probe testers –Vector-less testing –Power Supplies –Serial programming (Boundary Scan and other formats) –AOI camera MDA testers –Vector-less testing –Power Supplies –Serial programming (Boundary Scan and other formats) ICT testers –More tester pins to over 15,000 –Repackaging hardware into smaller footprints –Mix and Match analog and digital resources –Parallel test heads similar to Component testing of ICs –More automation – inline testers TESTER CHANGES

Flying Probe –No Fixture Required –Test Time Issue MDA –Fixture Required –Faster Testing –No Digital Back-drive ICT –Fixture Required usually more expensive than MDA –Typically faster test times –Digital Back-drive –Predictive protection –Measured protection TEST DIFFERENCES

Lots of different options –Is the one vendor solution still valid for your company? –How to manage multiple vendor solutions? –Is this the CM’s problem and not yours? Do you need more test knowledge or less to make the right choice? Do you have a process to determine what boards should or should not be tested? –If you don’t need digital test do you spec an MDA tester? –Do you want the CM to just put it analog cards in the ICT and charge less? –If during production you need digital just add the digital cards with 1:1 mux Do you spec a last century tester without this century upgrades? Have we reached the maximum number of testers needed? What do you want to see from Structural Test in the future??? STATE OF STRUCTURAL TEST