Auto Board Power TestingGeorge Madden

Principle Engineer

CHALLENGE

Boards are becoming ever complex Board level power (Point of Loads) solutions

are increasing dramatically Typical complex board have 50+ supplies Time to market ever decreasing

Current Day Solution

Increase power engineer staff to test Reduce test coverage by eliminating some

test cases and do targeted testing of certain supplies

Test only at one range (either minimum input or maximum input)

Push testing to IC vendors

Current Day Solution

Using power engineers to perform repetitive testing is not a good use of resource

Reducing test coverage results in reduction of quality, leaves gaps in test coverage and potentially affect yields

Ultimately will cost the company money as problems from manufacturing, field failures and reputation

Push testing to IC vendors will cause delay since most boards use different IC vendors (e.g. LT, Maxim, ADI, Infineon, International Rectifier, MPS, etc), same board will need to be passed between IC vendors to test, further adding additional delay

In addition, IC vendors will in turn bear the burden of test and will need to increase their resources

ABT

ABT is a high speed fully automated board level power test and report generation tool

WHAT IS ABT

Interacts and controls all test equipment Gathers and stores data in database Automatically generates report Testing can be done at a fraction of the time

as compared with manual testing

ABT Overview

TESTs include: Startup Shutdown Switch Node Load Regulation Transient Short Circuit Loop Response Efficiency Above tests done at both min and maximum

input voltages

TESTS

Quick turn around confidence test results Test report can be completed in DAYS rather

than in weeks Much money can be saved in terms of test

time for the company doing the testing (design team or IC vendor)

Time saved better used to focus on other design challenges

BENEFITS TO CUSTOMERS

One Power Supply Demo From initiation to report generation less than

10 min

Video Demo of ABT

Video Demo of ABT