Date: 03/09/05
Title:
Design for Testability Software Released
Design for Testability Software Released
LOS ANGELES, CA, March 4, 2005 – A.T.E. Solutions, Inc., the leading test, ATE and testability consulting and educational firm announced that it has released Version 3.2 of its popular software, The Testability DirectorTM.
The Testability Director provides several hundred guidelines for improving testability of ICs, x-ray inspection, optical inspection, board level test using both flying probe and bed-of nails fixturing, functional board test and system-level designs. Using an ExcelTM spreadsheet, users can easily assign weights to each of these test stages based on the extent to which they are utilized to test the product. After assigning weights to criteria and groups of criteria, the testability reviewer can score the extent to which these criteria are met. These result in an Overall Testability Score calculated by the software and expressed as a percentage. “This is not a passing or failing grade, per se,” says Louis Y. Ungar, President of A.T.E. Solutions, Inc. and a long time instructor and consultant of Design for Testability. Rather, Ungar emphasizes that the greater value of The Testability Director comes from establishing and managing a “process of communicating testability considerations across at least three disciplines: design, test and management. Each criterion is in the form of a question, because we want to encourage considerations to trade-offs rather than impositions of set rules. Finding a handful of things you can do, which will offer the greatest improvement in testability, is more feasible than forcing designers into complying with dozens of rules. The Testability Director can be used to identify the criteria with the greatest impact to your product’s testability.”
Released almost 10 years ago, and doubled in size, Version 3.1 required major reorganization and improvement in user friendliness. Version 3.2, accomplishes this, using hyperlinks within a familiar Excel spreadsheet to easily navigate between assigning weights, scoring criteria, and looking up guidelines. “Because most engineers are quite familiar with a spreadsheet, training time can literally be measured in minutes, rather than in hours. This enables users to concentrate on the testability guidelines, rather than how to use the software. In Version 3.2 we paid more attention to the organization of the software, enabling those who are only using certain test stages to be able to ‘turn off’ others. For example, those at the board-level may skip IC and ASIC-level testability guidelines by simply assigning a 0 weight to them,” according to Louis Y. Ungar, who chaired the Surface Mount Technology Association’s Testability Committee and helped develop its 2002 Testability Guidelines.
A detailed explanation and samples of The Testability Director are shown on the company’s web site at http://www.BestTest.com/OurProducts/TestabilityDirector/. Another good news: Version 3.2 is available for only $199.50 for a single user (about $200 less than Version 3.1) and it can be downloaded directly from the web site. Company-wide licensing is also available for $1,000 and may be purchased as an add-on to the single-user license.
About A.T.E. Solutions, Inc. – A.T.E. Solutions, Inc. is a leading independent consulting and educational firm in the area of electronics testing, automatic testing, ATE, design for testability and built-in self-test. Established in 1984, the company has helped companies, governments and universities around the world to test better. It has established and maintains The BestTest Directory, a test community web site allowing the free exchange of test related information by its several thousand members. The company and its consultants have been active in various professional society efforts to improve test through guidelines and standards. Mr. Louis Y. Ungar, President of A.T.E. Solutions, Inc. introduced the first university accredited course on automatic testing and design for testability at UCLA in the early 1980s and has been teaching these courses at test conferences and universities around the world ever since.
CONTACT: Karen Allan, Marketing Communications
+1-310-641-8400, email: Karen@BestTest.com
Web: www.BestTest.com or www.ATESolutionsInc.com
TM The Testability Directory is a Trade Mark of A.T.E. Solutions, Inc. Excel is a Trade Mark of Microsoft Corporation.
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