Networking automatic test equipment environments

Automatic test equipment (ATE) is a term that, in its broadest meaning, indicates a generic system capable of performing measurements in an automatic or semiautomated (human-assisted) way. Years ago, this term was used specifically to refer to an automated measurement system employed to test the functionality of some electronic device-under-test (DUT). Typical applications were in the manufacturing area, where ATE had a twofold nature: in-circuit testing and functional testing. For in-circuit testing, ATE often were stand-alone complex programmable machines, equipped with a bed-of-nails adapter specifically designed as a fixture to provide signal inputs and meaningful test-points of the DUT. The test engineer had the responsibility of writing code that determined the exact sequence of stimulus signals, response measurements, and go/no-go decisions. For this aim, a switch matrix and the ATE itself were suitably controlled and coordinated by a workstation. For functional testing, ATE consisted of off-the-shelf instruments connected to the DUT by some kind of front-end adapter. In the latter case, most of the effort of the test engineer consisted of designing a program to control the various instruments to assess DUT performances. When planning the use of a dedicated testing machine as opposed to a test bench, other factors were taken into account: measurement speed, cost, and fault coverage.