Flexible, automated diagnostic solutions to help people solve circuit card problems.
Cost Effective Troubleshooting in Manufacturing
Cost effective troubleshooting circuit card assembly
problems is a function of applying the most appropriate
test method to the problems that are best prepared to isolate and identify faults for corrective action.
As capable as some of the test equipment available on the market today may be, they are not always the most
cost effective when it comes to all of the potential test problems that can exist on a circuit card.
It may also be impractical to “fixture up” a piece of test equipment to be capable of recognizing all of the
potential problems that a board may have when many of those problems may only occur infrequently. The question
then is “What is the balance between...”
1. “...a significant investment in the software and fixture development of a high end tester as the primary
test method...”
versus
2. “...a balanced investment plan across the primary and another test method which cost effectively maximizes
fault coverage”?
The answer is a function of the cost of the board, volume of production, cost to develop test software/fixture
and the precision measurement ability of the primary tester. A number of companies today have equipped the
primary test equipment to only find the most common reoccurring faults in the circuit card. Those that are
more infrequent are either passed through a second level of board test (may occur frequently but the cost of
seeing them occur in system integration is too high) or discovered in system integration. When problems do
occur in system integration they are passed to an off-line station where adequate test methods are used to
diagnose the problem in a cost effective manner and return the circuit card to production.
* Precision probing
* Nondestructive Test
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Design/Test Engineering |
Manufacturing |
Repair |