Minimizing lifecycle cost of ATS solutions through COTS software design

This paper identifies the design features of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software that impact the lifecycle costs of automatic test systems (ATSs) and provides a set of design guidelines. It demonstrates that the architecture of COTS software must be modular, based on correct functional allocation, should possess distribution capabilities and contain open interfaces that are backwards compatible. In the case of COTS development tools, the programmatic interface should be simple, extensible and enforced to the maximum extent in the development environment.