Automation of Laser Single-Event Effect Testing of Integrated Circuits for Space Missions

A division of labor plays significant role in the efficiency of laser SEE Testing. The highest efficiency can be achieved when testers fulfill their roles in a global task: one is engaged in debugging and monitoring the testing progress at the facility, another one participates in the preparation and performance monitoring of the device under test (DUT). This article describes the architecture of our software for SEE testing that consists of two parts: the one responsible for the functional testing of the DUT and another one responsible for the SEE testing logic. Separating these two parts allows them to be developed independently by different specialists. The DUT part of software controls a wide variety of equipment including National Instruments PXI/PXIe modules which are commonly used for functional testing of the devices under test. The laser SEE testing part of software controls all parts of the laser facility (laser beam positioning and pulse synchronization, visualization of exposure area, etc.) and the acquisition of laser SEE testing data. One of the main points of this paper is the idea of communication between the apps on different platforms (Microsoft .NET and NI LabVIEW) over local area network.