CheckSum Provides Low-Cost In-Circuit with Boundary-Scan Test; Low-Cost Test Platform Delivers In-Circuit with Boundary-Scan Test for Under $70,000
ARLINGTON, Wash.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Sept. 22, 2005—
CheckSum, a leading supplier of low-cost in-circuit test
(ICT) systems, announced that its combination of in-circuit test and
boundary scan delivers test coverage equivalent to traditional "big
iron" testers costing five times as much.
John VanNewkirk, President and CEO, stated, "CheckSum's ICT plus
boundary scan solution costs less than $70,000 and provides superior
alignment between tester resources deployed and the actual fault
spectrum of today's complex boards than traditional big-iron testers
do."
CheckSum estimates that more than $250 million is wasted annually
in North America alone due to the misalignment of big-iron testers
with the actual faults found in today's boards. Two basic trends are
converging, creating the opportunity for electronics manufacturers to
use new, lower-cost approaches that provide a better alignment between
test coverage and actual faults than the traditional ICT test methods
used over the past two decades.
"First, component technology and the SMT assembly process itself
have shifted the fault spectrum of a typical board such that big-iron
ICT test capabilities are no longer aligned to it," said VanNewkirk.
"For example, ICT vector testing was designed for the straightforward
static logic of the devices of the 80's and early 90's. Modern ICs are
not testable with conventional ICT 'backdrive' vectors because of
access, speed and device complexity issues. As a result, expensive
digital vector capability remains idle in virtually every big-iron
ICT.
"Second, increasing density of circuit boards is significantly
reducing electrical access to boards -- the lifeblood of in-circuit
test. To offset loss of access, there's growing and widespread use of
boundary scan-equipped devices. For CheckSum, boundary scan is a
natural extension of our low-cost design philosophy because it
achieves equivalent or better coverage compared to traditional
backdrive vectors, but is far more usable for complex chips.
"Low-cost ICT and boundary scan are naturally complementary, and
we believe this is the future of manufacturing test," VanNewkirk
asserted.
Real-world Example of Low-cost ICT with Boundary Scan
As an example of CheckSum's cost advantage, VanNewkirk cited a
recently completed evaluation at a major contract manufacturer.
"CheckSum provided a low-cost boundary-scan test solution for under
$70,000, including the cost of the CheckSum ICT tester and
boundary-scan tools from a third-party supplier, which were selected
by the customer and used to generate the boundary-scan test programs,"
said VanNewkirk.
"One-time charges were approximately $55,000 for a CheckSum
Analyst tester and $15,000 for the third-party hardware and software,"
said VanNewkirk. "Recurring costs of test for similar boundary
scan-equipped boards would be only about $12,000 for a test fixture
and program. This real-world example underscores the substantial price
advantage for ICT-based boundary-scan test, compared to performing
boundary-scan testing on traditional in-circuit testers from Agilent,
GenRad, and Teradyne."
VanNewkirk provided the following detail about the board used for
the evaluation. The 5" X 11" board had 1,200 electrical nets, of which
only 68% could be physically probed and tested using conventional ICT
techniques. By adding boundary-scan test, the test coverage increased
from 68% to 88% -- an increase of 30%. In addition, the board included
40 ICs, the largest being an 860-pin ASIC. While many of the ICs were
not testable with conventional ICT "backdrive" vectors, most of the
ICs on this board were testable with boundary scan.
CheckSum supports boundary-scan test-generation tools from all the
leading suppliers, including Acculogic, ASSET, Corelis, Goepel, and
JTAG, as well as USB-based boundary-scan programming tools.
About CheckSum
CheckSum is a leading supplier of low-cost in-circuit test
solutions -- including systems, fixtures, and program -- to the
electronics manufacturing industry. CheckSum has been delivering
reliable, cost-effective, and easy-to-use test solutions to OEMs and
contract manufacturers for 18 years. With an installed base of over
2,500 test systems at more than 200 companies in over 40 countries,
CheckSum helps customers ranging from automotive electronics
manufacturers to global EMS providers reduce their total test and
manufacturing costs and increase their manufacturing margins.
CheckSum is the only North American Automated Test Equipment (ATE)
supplier to offer turnkey test program and fixturing packages
solutions and an engineering-oriented approach to customer support,
giving customers a cost-saving alternative to traditional ATE
suppliers. Satisfied customers helped CheckSum become the winner of
the 2004 Evaluation Engineering "Readers' Choice" award in the
category of ATE. For more information, visit www.checksum.com.
Contact:
Castle Hill Communications, Inc.
Charla Gabert, 925-256-6723 (CA)
Email Contact
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