Design for testability

At a colloquium organised by the IEE´s Management and Design Division (M1), and Professional Groups E1 and C9, in association with the Design Council, four speakers presented brief papers on design for testing in silicon integrated circuits, computer software, insulation systems and large turbine-driven generators. The objective was to identify the needs, economics and benefits of testing as part of the design process, in diverse applications. Discussion identified a number of common themes and principles. These included the need for testing to be an integral costed activity early in the design phase; clearly identified specification requirements (using formal language methods in the case of software); identification of failure mechanisms and development of monitoring techniques and formal systems for reliability data. Systematic quality control and type testing, based on practice and experience, were used to ensure functional requirements were met and to avoid costly unreliability in electrical machines.