Accelerated lifetime testing is usually done for 168 hours. Anadigics has approximately 10 test stations. A typical test station contains 128 IC modules (DUTs) mounted on 4 printed circuit boards which are placed in a high temperature oven. Power is applied to the DUTs and the resultant individual DUT currents are monitored for out of range conditions to detect DUT failures. Oven temperature, PC board temperatures and power supply voltages are also monitored to determine any non-DUT related anomalies that may occur. After a test is completed, the expected lifetime of the ICs under “normal operating conditions” is projected from the test data.

Anadigics required that all data acquired during the test be acquired at least once/second and be saved in files that could be used after the test was completed to view trend plots, create Excel compatible spreadsheets, and other reports. The user was allowed to specify the time period of interest for reports and trends. Anadigics also wanted the system to identify failures automatically.

The PAC SCADA Tool Kit, with its integrated Data Historian, was used as the platform for developing the LabVIEW based test management software. This Tool Kit provided almost all of the Anadigics requirements. Custom screens (see the attached screen images) were developed to support test definition and sensor calibration.

The National Instruments, SCXI with 4, 32 channel 100mv amplifiers (DUT current measurements) and FieldPoint (power supply voltages and oven thermocouples) were used to input data to a small Dell computer running LabVIEW executable program.

 

Test Definitions Front Panel.

 

Test Report.

 

Scan for Test Failures.