Practical instrumentation integration considerations

As complexities of ICs and systems increase, new test methodologies are developed (BIST, SCAN, etc.) to keep test times and costs minimized. However, these methodologies do not address some measurement concerns (DC and AC parametric tests, special functionality, etc.). For example, as manufacturers shrink processes from 130 nm to 90 nm, significant signal integrity problems have occurred and need to be tested or characterized. Hence, integration of additional instrumentation into the test platform is a suitable option. Integrating instrumentation into existing ATE is not as easy as simply connecting, programming, and testing. Signal integrity affected by resistive/capacitive loading, connections, bandwidth, and phase matching; accessibility to references for calibration, verification, and diagnostics; thermal drift; and MTBF are all issues that must be considered to insure a trouble-free integration.