Test program and ATE station dependencies: Have we learned anything from the past, or are we doomed to repeat it?

Early test systems were designed for manual operation where the user had to select front panel buttons and knobs to set-up and run tests. This method of testing was time consuming, expensive and prone to error. Automatic Test Equipment (ATE) was originally developed to take manual test scenarios and automate the repetitive procedures that technicians performed while conducting tests on Units Under Test (UUTs). The introduction of the computer to aid in testing drove instrument manufacturers to develop programmable instrumentation and computer manufacturers to develop interfaces between the computer and the instrument. These interfaces and instruments utilized the technology of the day. As technology has moved forward, ATE systems have gone through the following three phases - manual interventions, semiautomatic interventions, and being automatically controlled. Initially, ATE systems started out as parallel interfaces with instrument manufacturers providing manual access interventions from the front or back of the station. Issues that arose from this included accessibility as certain functions were not easily available to the end user from the front or back of the station. Furthermore, as stations matured the timing and characteristics of the instrumentation and/or the effect on the UUT changed as well. This transition from manual to automatic testing drove the need for `correlation of test´, meaning a comparison of the original test characteristics/results to the target ATEs test characteristics/results. Typically, due to the differences in the instrumentation and by the virtue of the fact that the test was being performed much faster than the previous generations test equipment hardware, the test results varied dramatically (to the point of failing). It wasn´t uncommon, especially in the 1970´s, to spend more time getting the tests to correlate versus the time it took to develop an entire Test Program Set (TPS). Due to the advancing evolution of technology (e.g., computers and electronics), ATE (new and existing station upgrades) systems have evolved through their usage of communication interfaces (parallel, serial, Ethernet, MXI, PXI), station instrumentation (VME, VXI, PXI-based), and selection of station controllers/computers (mainframes, personal computers, laptops) to run the ATE system. These changes are forward looking and typically don´t take into account what has been done in the past so legacy ATE systems are constantly being upgraded to support the latest technology. This evolution provided the `latest and greatest technology´ with little or no regard to the past. For example, newly designed oscilloscopes are designed for today´s electronics needs and are not meant to operate like a model built 10 years ago. Technological advances typically introduce timing issues and correlation problems that need to be resolved. As one can see, the issues related to ATE technological advances continue to repeat themselves over and over as time and technology moves forward. This paper will address such issues and will provide recommendations that can be used to support the development of future ATE systems so as to not repeat past problems.