Read how Smartbits Systems (a division of Spirent Communications) dramatically increased production yields with use of Corelis’ ScanExpress Boundary-Scan Tester.
Smartbits Systems Dramatically Increases Production Yields Through use of Corelis’ ScanExpress Boundary-Scan Tester
Smartbits Systems, a SPIRENT COMMUNICATIONS company, specializes in high-performance analysis and measurement systems for the networking industry, data service providers, and end-users worldwide.
“To achieve complex product functionality in small size packages, Smartbits Systems is developing and producing densely populated boards with many high-speed BGA parts,” said Surin Shaw, Test Engineering Manager at Smartbits Systems.
When previously testing Smartbits Systems’ densely populated boards, Mr. Shaw noticed an increasing failure rate and lower yields as the boards became more dense. In advance of new products and technologies where the migration of BGA components into the design was imminent, Smartbits Systems needed new tools to detect shorts and opens underneath the BGA components. X-ray was one option but is not fully effective at detecting opens. At that point, Mr. Shaw decided to look for test methods that will find interconnect and other manufacturing defects prior to running the functional test. Considering various alternatives, boundary-scan appeared to be the right solution for these types of problems.
Corelis was selected as one of the potential boundary-scan tool vendors and a careful analysis was done of the capabilities and ease-of-use of the available products for boundary-scan. Corelis’ superb pre-sale support, the ease at which Corelis’ system handled tasks such as generating test vectors and subsequent committed technical support, convinced Mr. Shaw that Corelis was the vendor and partner of choice.
The Corelis system saves a lot of time. Tests are run in seconds saving hours of trouble-shooting. Functional test only tells you that the board or device is dead. Boundary-scan tells you where the fault is. The system also can tell if there is a missing resistor, as an open is created. We have been using Corelis’ boundary-scan testers for the last 10 new product releases and it has proven to be invaluable.
“The results were above expectations.” Added Surin. “Interconnect and other production failures have been solved and moreover, boundary-scan methodology made the solution easy to implement. With the volatility of the market that Smartbits System addresses with its products, it is essential that time-to-market be minimized and product quality be the highest possible. With Corelis boundary-scan tools, Smartbits Systems found both a solution and a committed partner.”
Mr. Shaw was so impressed with the added value of boundary-scan and Corelis’ ScanExpress boundary-scan test tools, that he is incorporating boundary-scan testability into all new product designs at Smartbits Systems.
“The Corelis system saves a lot of time. Tests are run in seconds saving hours of trouble-shooting. Functional test only tells you that the board or device is dead. Boundary-scan tells you where the fault is. The system also can tell if there is a missing resistor, as an open is created. We have been using Corelis’ boundary-scan testers for the last 10 new product releases and it has proven to be invaluable.”
“The results were above expectations. Interconnect and other production failures have been solved.”