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The Changing Economics of In-circuit Test
June 24, 2014 |Estimated reading time: 1 minute
A new brand of ICT production test systems removes the traditional barriers associated with automating electrical test. Zero footprint and multisite design concepts are changing the economics of ICT in dramatic ways for manufacturers of high-volume printed circuit board assemblies.
The Role of Test & Inspection
Test and inspection equipment used on the production floor of high-volume PCB manufacturers generally includes automated optical and X-ray inspection (AOI and AXI) imaging systems and one or more electrical test systems commonly referred to as manufacturing defect analyzers (MDA), in-circuit test (ICT) or functional test (FCT) systems. Each of these technologies is adept at detecting certain defects, and the Venn diagram shown in Figure 1 indicates that combining these techniques at various points in the manufacturing process provides the best level of confidence that the products being built are free of defects.
Figure 1: Overlapping and complementary fault detection properties of test & inspection equipment.
To support trends toward automated assembly of PCBs, the makers of test and inspection equipment have developed versions of their systems that are specifically designed to be integrated into various in-line production environments. The success of these in-line automated versions has been met with mixed success. Read the full article here.Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the May 2014 issue of SMT Magazine.