Test extends from mmWave R&D to life-cycle management
National Instruments has released its Automated Test Outlook 2016 (ATO 2016), an overview of key technologies—based on feedback from the NI customer base of more than 35,000 companies—that will have an impact on the test industry.
NI identified five key areas: standardized platforms for characterization and development, test-management software, production-test data, life-cycle management, and mmWave test strategies. ATO 2016 addresses these areas in five articles.
The article on standardized platforms notes that a 1983-era cellphone cost about $10,000 in today’s dollars. Prices have dropped drastically, but the NI report states that test costs can represent nearly half the cost of goods sold. If a company doesn’t consider a common-platform approach to test, NI contends, it may leave money on the table.
When it comes to software, the NI report notes that Fortran was quite successful, leading to Pascal, C, Atlas, and others with varying levels of abstraction. In addition, LabVIEW was developed for test, measurement, and control applications while Python supported quick code-scripting tasks. Test-management software, the NI report states, can “… act as a Rosetta Stone of sorts between different languages.”
An article contributed by David Park, vice president of worldwide marketing at Optimal+, notes that even a seemingly trivial problem such as probe-card or load-board failure can, if undetected, lead to significant problems that ripple throughout the supply chain. Big data analytics can help mitigate the problems. Mike Santori, Business and Technology Fellow at NI, comments, “Companies like Optimal+ are delivering on the promise of big data for semiconductor manufacturing by providing near real-time ability to analyze and act on the insights in the data, lowering the cost of test, and improving the product quality.”
The article on life-cycle management cites the stunning 2015 DoD announcement that the B-52, introduced in 1952, may be in service until 2044. In contrast, Windows XP was supported for about 13 years. Consequently, test systems for legacy systems often embody several OSs—perhaps one for each box instrument. Modular architectures, the NI report notes, open the door to a single OS controlling multiple instruments.
The cover article in this issue (Supporting the past, building the future) elaborates on the life-cycle considerations for long-lived systems in military/aerospace industries. That article quotes Mike Dewey, director of marketing at Marvin Test Solutions, as saying, “One of the primary issues we see is the on-going requirement to address legacy test needs, and more specifically, how can this be done cost effectively when there might be hundreds of existing TPSs that need to be supported or upgraded to work with new test platforms?”
Indeed, ATO 2016 quotes Wilkes University Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering David R. Carey as saying, “The cost to rewrite a TPS due to the replacement of legacy/obsolete instrumentation in a test system is approximately $150k/TPS.”
The final article in ATO 2016 deals with mmWave test strategies (from 24 to 86 GHz), and it focus on connectivity and communications protocols such as WiGig (IEEE 802.11ad). It cites NI R&D manager and IEEE Fellow Amarpal (Paul) Khanna as saying, “Millimeter wave research has presented a myriad of technology proposals, which continue to evolve, and since frequencies of operation and bandwidths have not been finalized, flexible systems for characterization, V&V, and production testing will prove to be invaluable in their ability to remain nimble during the establishment of standards.”
You may have different topics that you think are key to test in 2016, or you may have different solutions to the issues ATO 2016 addresses. There are several venues to raise your own opinions. For example, Khanna at NI is serving as the general chair of this year’s International Microwave Symposium (IMS 2016), scheduled for May 22-27 in San Francisco. The topics also will undoubtedly be addressed at NIWeek Aug. 1-4 in Austin. And as always, you are invited to comment at my blog at the link below.