SEMICONDUCTOR TEST Keeping the - Nxtbook...

T H E M A G A Z I N E F O R Q U A L I T Y I N E L E C T R O N I C S

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September 2011

TEST IDEAS

Measure resis-tance and tem-perature with a sound card

20INSTRUMENTATION

Charge-pumping measurements

31SEMICONDUCTOR TEST

Speeding SOC test

35TEST DIGEST

Automating network test

18

Page 22

Keeping the measurements flowing

Dan Donaghey, design-verification and test engineer

at GE Measurement & Control Solutions.

Engineers at GE Measurement & Control Solutions produce flow

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© 2011 Agilent Technologies, Inc.* All prices are in USD and subject to change

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MATLAB is a registered trademark of The MathWorks,Inc. Other product or brand names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

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C o n t e n t s

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Tech Trends15 software key to effective use of

aTe hardware

17 plasma Fib speeds failure analysis

TesT digesT18 control test instruments

with python

18 automating network test

depaRTMenTs 9 editor’s note

11 Test voices

12 news briefs

38 product update

50 Viewpoint

8 editorial staff

48 business staff

TEST IDEAS

Measure resistance and temperature with a sound cardMeasure resistance and use free software to convert to temperature.By Zoltan Gingl and Peter Kocsis, University of Szeged, Szeged, Hungary

InSTrumEnTATIon covEr STory

Keeping the measurements flowingengineers at ge Measurement & control solutions produce flow meters and moisture analyzers that give the right results.By Martin Rowe, Senior Technical Editor

InSTrumEnTATIon

Charge-pumping measurementsA system that incorporates a pulse generator and a sensitive dc ammeter can reveal information about the quality of semiconductor devices.By Mary Anne Tupta, Keithley Instruments

SEmIconDucTor TEST

Speeding SOC testProtocol-aware ATe hardware boosts the efficiency of parallel-site and concurrent tests for siP, sOc, and McM designs.By Tim Lyons, Teradyne

Test voices / Page 11

20

22

31

41 Modular Instrumentation Test Report • VXi 4.0 adds power and bandwidth • usb test instruments provide portable

modularity

test report supplement

C o v e r b y: J a s o n g r o w

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www.tmworld.com TEST & MEASUREMENT WORLD

Online now at TMWorld.comCheck out these exclusive features on the Test & Measurement World Website:

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The nomination deadline is September 30, 2011. We will an-nounce the finalists on our Website on November 1 and in our November issue, and we’ll ask readers to vote for their favorites. The winners will be announced on January 31 during a ceremony at DesignCon 2012 in Santa Clara, CA.

www.tmworld.com/awards

Blog commentaries and links

Taking the MeasureRick Nelson, Editor in Chief

• ESC Boston offers test track• NI responds to Agilent’s comments on VSA

comparison• Agilent responds to NI VSA comparison• On the road to self-driving cars

Rowe’s and ColumnsMartin Rowe, Senior Technical Editor

• Strike up the EMC band again• 40-Gbps optical agreement announced

Testing the LimitsUNH-IOL Staff

• Test modes: Pattern generators• Test modes: Pattern checkers and error counters• Test modes: Why do we care?

www.tmworld.com/blogs

You work in all kinds of conditions, so should your spectrum analyzer.

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TesT & MeasureMenT World

EDITORIAL STAFFEditorial Director: Rick Nelson [email protected] ATE & EDA, Inspection, Failure Analysis, Wireless Test, Software, Environmental Test

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he National Academy of Engineering’s 14 grand engineering challenges re-ceived well-deserved attention last month when National Instruments re-lied on the list of challenges as a rough outline for demonstrations dur-

ing its NIWeek event, August 2–4 in Austin, TX.The challenges are as follows: Make solar

energy economical, provide energy from fusion, develop carbon-sequestration methods, manage the nitrogen cycle, provide access to clean water, restore and improve urban infra-structure, advance health informatics, engineer

better medi-cines, reverse-engineer the brain, prevent nuclear terror, secure cyber-space, enhance virtual reality,

advance personalized learning, and engineer better tools of scientific discovery.

Shelley Gretlein, NI’s director of core plat-forms (software), told attendees at a Wednes-day, August 3, keynote session, “You need tools that scale with your application as you address 14 grand engineering challenges.” She quoted Ray Bradbury: “Predicting the future is much too easy…more of the same.” She urged at-tendees to avoid “more of the same” and to “look for something better.”

Gretlein then introduced several demonstra-tions that indeed point to something better. Some directly addressed the 14 challenges. Ste-fano Concezzi, director of physics at the Univer-sity of Parma, and Michael Cerna, senior soft-ware engineer for NI’s LabView scientific com-puting group, described the application of real-time math to the development of a practical fu-

sion energy reactor. Addressing urban infra-structure, Jeremiah Fasl of the UT civil engineer-ing department described his use of a wireless sensor network platform installed on a fracture-critical bridge in Austin. Vin Ratford of Xilinx discussed engineering the tools of scientific dis-covery, describing high-performance image-pro-cessing applications based on the Xilinx Zynq platform. And in a Tuesday presentation, Bill Kramer, R&D manager at the National Renew-able Energy Lab, described the challenges of prototyping power inverters that could serve in solar and other renewable energy technologies.

Other presentations indirectly related to the challenges, dealing, for example, with the acquisi-tion of information that might go into a health-care informatics system or optimizing the grid over which fusion- or solar-generated electricity might travel. In Wednesday presentations, for in-stance, Dr. Changho Chong of Santec described the world’s smallest OCT (optical coherence to-mography) noninvasive imaging system for medi-cal and other applications. Jaswinder Singh of NexGEN Consultancy described efforts in Rajast-han, India, to renovate the electrical grid. And speaking on Tuesday, Michelle Tinsley, GM of the embedded computing division of Intel, predicted that by 2015 there will be 15 billion connected devices—and many will be connected embedded devices. It’s not hard to imagine those devices serving in applications ranging from providing clean water to enhancing personalized learning.

Gretlein concluded the Wednesday session by telling her audience, “Of all the grand chal-lenges, we are committed to do our part and equip you with the tools you need to create and deploy applications of the future. I am rely-ing on you to solve the remaining engineering grand challenges we will face in the next quar-ter century.” T&MW

Meeting the grand challenges

Gretlein urged the attendees at NIWeekto “look for some-thing better.”

T

SEPTEMBER 2011 9TEST & MEASUREMENT WORLD www.tmworld.com

EDITOR’S NOTE RICK NELSON

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR

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[An exclusive interview with a test engineer]TesTVoices

SEPTEMBER 2011 11TEST & MEaSuREMEnT WoRld www.tmworld.com

Every other month, we interview an electronics engineer who has test, measurement, or inspection responsibilities. To participate in a future column, contact Martin Rowe at [email protected]. To read past Test Voices columns, go to www.tmworld.com/testvoices.

Q: What are your product engineer roles and test engineer roles?A: Each design center has engineers who are responsible for product evaluation and production test. We see a prod-uct through from design to production. As a product engi-neer, I work with designers to develop tests for evaluating RF components. That involves making sure that designers design test features into our ICs. For example, analog test buses provide multiplexed access to a device’s nodes that aren’t available to the user. We also have power detectors in devices that monitor RF signals.

I then develop tests for measuring parameters such as frequency response, S-parameters, third-order intercepts, 1-dB compression points, and noise figure. As a test engineer, I develop test plans based on large-scale ATE (automated test equipment) systems located in Asia, where we do final assembly and test. The wafer fab is located in the Netherlands.

Q: What sort of testing do you perform at the design center?A: I use test equipment such as VNAs (vector network ana-lyzers) to characterize components under software control. VNAs can measure S-parameters, gain compression, and in-termodulation distortion. I also have test benches that use signal generators and spectrum analyzers. We also use power supplies and digital multimeters to provide the necessary bias voltage or current to the device under test, or we may use source-monitor units. The test stations also use temper-ature control systems that let us rapidly characterize a de-vice over a wide range of hot and cold temperatures.

I also write the code for the test stations. The test-station software consists of a test executive and code to control the

instruments. A test-plan file defines the stimulus and measurement conditions, while other files hold the test-parameter definitions and their limits. We use another set of configuration files to manage a test station’s hardware configuration, bias states, and digital states. Test systems also store test results, and engineers analyze them with statistical analysis software. Typically, we need about five files to configure and run a test, but this open, flexible approach allows us to test a wide variety of devices.

Q: How do you use the data-analysis software?A: A device characterization requires many measure-ments. For example, a mixer may have as many as 10,000 measurements that cover the required temperature and voltage ranges. Data-analysis tools let us plot test results such as frequency response. The tools let us “slice” into the data.

For example, suppose we have a plot of gain versus frequency for an amplifier taken over several power-supply voltages and temperatures. We can focus on a few key frequencies and find the amplifier’s gain versus voltage or temperature roll-off at a given frequency. The tools also help us understand part-to-part variations and correlate these variations back to fundamental wafer parameters.

Q: How many parts do you use in an evaluation?A: It varies. For proof-of-concept builds, maybe five or 10 parts. If we’re trying to understand a component’s behavior, we might test from 30 to 50 parts. T&MW

Andy street is a test and product engi-neer with NXP semiconductors, a

maker of RF amplifiers, mixers, upconvert-ers, downconverters, and other compo-nents. street works with design engineers and production engineers to characterize the company’s RFics and to ensure that the company’s industrial test facilities are ready on time. senior technical editor Martin Rowe met with street at the NXP RF small-signal design center in Billerica, MA.

Automation keeps RFICs in spec

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12 september 2011 www.tmworld.com test & measurement World

NEWSBRIEFS

At NIWeek (August 2 –4, Austin, TX), National Instruments comple-mented the release of LabView 2011 (p. 38) with a new 14-GHz VSA (vector signal analyzer) as well as new data-acquisition and recon-figurable I/O products.

The company expanded the RF capabilities of its PXI line-up with the 14-GHz version (pictured) of its NI PXIe-5665 RF VSA. The VSA offers peer-to-peer data streaming for signal processing and a flexible MIMO (multiple input, multiple output) architecture for phase-coherent measurements. Speaking at an NIWeek key-note session, Sylvain Bertrand, RF broadband validation manager at ST-Ericsson, said the new NI PXIe-5665 VSA gives ST-Ericsson’s characterization labs the performance and accuracy he needs for 3GPP RF IC design validation. “At the bottom line, the VSA reduces our system cost while increasing flexibility and decreas-ing physical bulk compared to our previous box solutions,” he said. The base price for the new PXIe-5665 RF VSA is $49,999.

In addition, National Instruments announced the new NI cDAQ-9191, cDAQ-9181, and cDAQ-9171 one-slot chassis, which support all NI C Series modules for the NI CompactDAQ platform and can be used in conjunction with the existing four- and eight-slot chassis. NI also announced an expansion to its RIO (reconfigurable I/O) plat-form with the addition of multicore NI CompactRIO systems and small NI Single-Board RIO devices. The new NI cRIO-908x systems feature an Intel Core i7 dual-core processor, Xilinx Spartan-6 FPGAs, and a Windows Embed-ded Standard 7 OS configuration option. www.ni.com

Manufacturers announce 40-Gbps MSA

Five manufacturers recently announced an MSA (multisource agreement) for 40-Gbps pluggable transceiver modules. The new MSA covers TOSA (transmit-ter optical subassembly) and ROSA (receiver optical subassembly) modules.

The MSA specifies simple electrical interfaces and a low-profile and compact fit for pluggable modules. It defines the laser transmitter devices and the PIN-TIA (PIN photodiode-transimpedance amplifier) receiver devices that comply with 40-Gbps interface standards.

The five companies—Mitsubishi Electric, OKI Semiconductor, Opnext, Renesas Electronics, and Sumitomo Electric—also plan to specify the com-mon mechanical dimensions, footprint, pin functions, and performance of the optical transmitter and receiver devices. The group expects to release its specifi-cations within the next year.

An MSA committee spokesperson said that the agreement will lead to pluggable modules that will “provide advanced 40-Gbps serial solutions to high-capacity network and storage systems.”

Geotest debuts semiconductor testerGeotest has announced the TS-900, a new PXI-based test system for component, SOC, and SIP test applications. Offering up to 512 100-MHz channels with per-pin PMUs (parametric measurement units) and an integrated receiver interface, the modular TS-900 includes a set of hardware and software capabilities for digital and mixed-signal test applications. The custom-designed test interface supports the use of PCB DUT (device under test) boards for inter-facing to the device under test. In addition, the receiver interface’s

pin blocks are field-configurable, allowing users to upgrade the receiver when they modify or upgrade the system for new applications. The system supports 64 to 512 dynamic digital channels as well as a range of analog, power-supply, and RF resources.

The basic TS-900 test system includes 64 100-MHz digital I/O channels, 64 static digital I/O channels, a programmable power supply, a system self-test feature, and a fixture. The software supplied with the TS-900 includes Geotest’s DIOEasy,

for digital waveform editing and display, and ATEasy, which pro-vides an integrated and complete test executive and test-develop-ment environment, allowing users to quickly develop and easily maintain test applications. In addition, software tools are available for converting digital vectors from ASCII, WGL, or STIL formats. The TS-900 is available in both benchtop and cart configurations.

Base price: less than $75,000. Geotest, www.geotestinc.com.

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NI debuts 14-GHz VSA plus DAQ and I/O products

TesT & MeasureMenT World www.tmworld.com sepTeMber 2011 13

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eC a l E n da r automotive Testing Expo north america, october 25–27, novi, MI. UKIP Media & Events, www.testing-expo.com/usa.

Vision 2011, november 8–10, stuttgart, Germany. Messe Stutt-gart, www.messe-stuttgart.de.

Productronica, november 15–18, Munich, Germany. Messe München, www.productronica.com.

designCon 2012, January 30–February 2, santa Clara, Ca. UBM Electronics, www.designcon. techinsightsevents.com.

To learn about other conferences, courses, and calls for papers, visit www.tmworld.com/events.

PCIe board handles digital I/OComputer-based test and automation systems often must sense digital signals and control motors and actuators. To that end, the DIO-16-LPCIe PCIe (PCI Express) I/O board from Sealevel Systems adds eight optically isolated digital inputs (3 V to 30 V) and eight reed-relay outputs.

You can use the inputs to detect digital signals from sensors such as proximity sensors. The reed-relay outputs can switch up

to 500 mA, enough to drive small motors or other electromechanical devices such as solenoids. Contact voltage is 60 V, maxi-mum. The digital inputs can sink up to 20 mA, and they provide 300-VAC isolation. The board’s I/O connector also provides +5-V and +12-V power and three ground pins for when you need to supply voltage at a sensor.

The DIO-16-LPCIe is a low-profile board, which lets it fit into small PC cases. It uses one PCIe lane and thus is compatible with any PCIe expansion slot. Sealevel Systems’ SeaIO software contains drivers for Windows operating systems from Win-dows 98 through Windows 7.

Price $289. Sealevel Systems, www.sealevel.com.

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[design, test & Yield]

semicon West was the venue for major ATE (automated test equip-ment) news, with Advantest tout-

ing its acquisition of Verigy. While Ad-vantest and Verigy executives presented a united front at a July 12 press confer-ence, Advantest and Verigy engineers proceeded on divergent paths as they debuted new modules for their T2000 and V93000 platforms. Not to be out-done by its newly constituted competi-tor, Teradyne announced new modules for its UltraFLEX platform.

James T. Healy, GM of Sony LSI De-sign, adopted a nautical theme to classify ATE players when he addressed the co-located ATE Vision 2020 workshop on July 14. He said the industry is popu-lated by small Nemos (alluding to the boy clownfish protagonist of the 2003 Finding Nemo film) that come and go with the tide and are often eaten by the behemoth Bemos (who can become sick on their diet of Nemos). The third

category, he said, are the Remos, who reno-vate repossessed or fully depreciated testers to test today’s devices.

Yet another class of ATE provider, repre-sented at Semicon West by Aeroflex, Geotest, and National Instruments, offers low-cost PXI-based systems (with Aeroflex adding AXIe as well). Following Healy’s nomenclature, I’ll call these companies Memos—multifaceted vendors adding IC test to their menu of applications served. Far from looking to become food for the Bemos, they are looking to eat some of the Bemos’ lunch.

So from a hardware standpoint, cus-tomers can choose from a range of

options. Unfortunately, hardware is only part of the problem, as pre-senters at the ATE Vision 2020 workshop made clear. Chris Lem-oine of LTX-Credence said his customers in-vest millions of dollars in ATE software, and they want to protect that investment as hardware changes. Pete Hodakievic of AMD noted that great software can hide poor hardware, but great hardware can

be 100% handicapped by poor software.ATE vendors are addressing the soft-

ware issue. For example, Peter Huber of Teradyne described his work on UTSL (Universal Test Specification Language), which imposes a slight test-time penalty but drastically speeds test-program de-velopment for automotive-device test. ATE customers are mounting their own efforts. Radford Nguyen of AMD de-scribed his company’s Unified Platform Architecture—a software framework for rapid test-program development for any available ATE platform.

Software firms are contributing as well. Geir Eide of Mentor Graphics teamed up with Markus Seuring of Ve-rigy to describe an ATE-to-EDA con-nection through STDF V4-2007 that enables fast and robust scan-fail data collection. And Dan Glotter of Opti-malTest, departing from Healy’s nautical metaphors, said OptimalTest has paved the semiconductor information super-highway across the supply chain to sup-port real-time data collection, secure data transfer, and data analysis.

Hodakievic concluded by noting that millennial engineers want to focus their creative energies on solving problems, not building toolkits. To that end, he said to general agreement, test engineers need an ATE app store. t&MW

Software key to effective use of ATe hardware

IDM chooses Multitest DuraKelvinMultitest said that an IdM chose its duraKelvin contactors for use in production test. The IdM reported that duraKelvin achieved a life span of more than 4 million insertions—more than four times the set target. Firstpass yield went from 95 to 98.5%, and the duraKelvin only required cleaning after 100 hr, reducing testcell downtime by 90% compared with the IdM’s original configuration. www.multitest.com.

ChipVORX IP supports fast flash programmingGoepel electronic has developed a ChipVOrX model library series for accelerated insystem programming of FPGA flash devices. developed in cooperation with Testonica, the ChipVOrX models are structured modularly as intelligent IP and are available for all Altera and Xilinx FPGA families. www.goepel.com; www.testonica.com.

Wineman and Tecnalia debut DynacarWineman Technology and Tecnalia research have introduced dynacar, a realtime vehicle model simulator for developing and testing passenger and light commercial vehicles. dynacar—a plugin for Wineman’s Inertia test automation software and national Instruments’ Veristand testandsimulation software—provides a test platform that engineers can use from early vehicle design through hardwareintheloop and dynamometer testing. www.tecnalia.com/en; www.winemantech.com.

rICK nelsOn edITOrIAl dIreCTOr

[email protected]

The AX-Series system for charac-terization and production testing of consumer RF and mixed-signal semiconductors employs PXI along with AXIe technology. Courtesy of Aeroflex.

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[machine vision]

conducting site-specific, cross-sectional failure analysis and fault isolation on complex,

highly integrated packaged chips using FIB (focused ion beam) technology is no easy task. Analyzing 3-D IC packages and MEMS (microelectromechanical systems) with existing FIB techniques often requires several hours, instead of the minutes that would be required to make these techniques feasible in high-volume manufacturing envi-ronments. Conse-quently, to date this FIB analysis has been limited to relatively small numbers of samples, which has restricted the amount of development and failure-analysis feed-back that can be done with these techniques.

In failure analysis, FIB systems remove material, add material, and form high-resolution images, all with the same beam. FIBs based on a Ga LMIS (gallium liquid metal ion source) have worked well in electronics applica-tions for localized, site-specific section-ing and TEM (transmission electron mi-croscope) sample preparation, said Richard Young, FEI’s FIB technologist. “But in newer, highly integrated 3-D packaging applications, failure-analysis engineers are struggling with much larger volumes of material and larger sections that are hundreds of microns across,” he said. “This can take hours of milling time with FIB systems based on a gallium liquid metal ion source. In particular, the development of TSVs [through-silicon vias] is being hindered by the metrology time required.”

A new FIB source technology, ICP (inductively coupled plasma) using a xenon ion beam, can remove material up to 20 times faster than other FIB

technologies, said Young. “ICP technol-ogy extends the maximum beam cur-rent to more than 1 microamp, com-pared to only a few tens of nanoamps for gallium liquid metal ion, thus re-moving material faster. At the same time, it can provide the lower beam currents needed for high-milling precision in final cuts and high-resolution, sub-30-nm cross-section imaging. It can

cross-section features in a wide range of di-ameters, from 50 to 1000 microns.”

This combination of high-speed milling and deposition with pre-cise control and high-quality imaging, real-ized in FEI’s Vion PFIB (plasma FIB) sys-tem, makes the tech-nology appropriate for several tasks. These include defect analysis of 3-D chips and MEMS devices; fail-

ure analysis of bumps, wire bonds, TSVs, and stacked die; and site-specific mate-rial removal to enable failure analysis and fault isolation on buried die. It’s also possible to introduce different gases so the Vion PFIB can selectively etch cer-tain materials or deposit patterned con-ductors and insulators. ICP has been used previously for TSV deposition and etching systems, but using it as an ion-beam source in a FIB system is new, said Young.

Not only are the volumes of material to be milled larger, but packaging and failure-analysis engineers are also deal-ing with new materials, smaller features, and thinner, more fragile samples, said Peter Carleson, FEI’s product marketing manager. “The faster feedback provided by FEI’s Vion PFIB system helps keep the high-volume development and fail-ure analysis of TSVs, MEMS, and 3-D packages on track,” he said. T&mW

Plasma FIB speeds failure analysis

Wafer-inspection system uses DUVKLA-Tencor’s latest generation of surfscan wafer-defect and sur-face-quality inspection systems for substrate manufacturing and IC process monitoring, the sP3, is designed for extension to the next wafer size of 450 mm and to device nodes of 28 nm and below. The sP3 incorporates dUV (deep-ultraviolet) illumination, providing dramatic advances in sensitivity and throughput over its UV illumination predecessor. www.kla-tencor.com.

Frame grabber captures 30 bits/pixelThe PIXCI A310 from epix uses a PCI express x4 slot for capturing up to 30 bits per pixel of high-resolution rGB video. It acquires images from monochrome or rGB cameras with rs-170, CCIr, rs-343, VGA, sVGA, XGA, WXGA, sXGA, sXGA+, WXGA, WsGA+, and UXGA formats. The card’s 64-bit memory addressing allows it to capture image sequences directly to PC memory. www.epixinc.com.

Metrology system examines 3-D ICsThe 3dIr (three-dimensional infrared) metrology and defect-review system uses confocal Ir laser-scanning microscopy to monitor post-bond parameters of 3-d stacked ICs, measuring alignment points at selected die, storing images, and summarizing results. Correlating overlay-alignment-offset data to electri-cal yield provides an early indi-cation of bonded wafer yield. www.olympus-ita.com.

Ann r. ThryfTConTrIBUTInG TeChnICAL edITor

[email protected]

This image shows a zoomed close-up of a feature in a TSV that has been located, cross-sectioned, and imaged by the Vion PFIB system. Courtesy of FEI.

TesTdigest

www.tmworld.com TesT & MeasureMenT World 18 sepTeMber 2011

On June 22, 2011, the NTAF (Network Test Automation Forum) presented a Webcast to provide an overview of its specifications for automation and in-teroperability in network testing (Ref. 1). Bruno Giguere from EXFO, Kenneth Green from Ixia, and Todd Law from Spirent Communications made presentations, and I served as moderator.

EXFO’s Giguere opened by re-counting the history of NTAF, and he explained the need for a unified software standard for automating network test. “Today’s test solutions are often vendor specific and there are no standards for interoperabil-ity,” he said. Giguere demonstrated what can happen when you try to integrate a test system using equip-ment from multiple suppliers: “You end up entangled in different pro-

gramming commands that lead to in-teroperability problems.” NTAF brings test-equipment makers, network-equip-ment makers, and service providers to-gether under a single specification for au-tomating network tests.

Next, Ixia’s Green delved into the de-tails, explaining that the NTAF software standard is based on XMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol), a protocol developed for instant messag-ing. XMPP lets automation tools—com-

puters or servers running auto-mation software—communicate with test equipment and net-work equipment across LANs and WANs.

“It [XMPP] can easily traverse the security gateways present in today’s test environments ,” Green said. An NTAF server cont ro l s NTAF-compl i an t equipment on the network un-der test. The server is essentially a standard XMPP server config-ured with an NTAF registry that lets NTAF-aware tools identify NTAF-capable equipment and

I n s T r u M e n T s

Control test instruments with Python

W e b C a s T

Automating network test

Many engineers write code to automate instruments and collect data. While you can use commercially available program-ming languages, you can also use open-source software tools to write your automa-tion code.

Sinay Goldberg, an engi-neer in Ra’anna, I sr ael , needed to measure the fre-quency response of a me-chanical system. Using an osc i l loscope, a funct ion generator, a current sensor, a piezoelectric transducer, and a l a ser v ibrometer, Goldberg designed a mea-surement system that gener-ates a stimulus signal and captures the mechanical sys-tem’s response signals (see figure). He controls the os-c i l loscope and funct ion generator through a USB

por t and with sof tware wr it ten in Python (www.python.org). A pyvisa application provides a link to the in-

struments through a common pro-gramming interface (sourceforge.net/projects/pyvisa).

The function generator ex-cites the mechanical system using a swept-frequency sine wave. When the mechanical system vibrates, the vibrome-ter converts mechanical mo-tion into an electrical signal that the oscilloscope captures. After transferring the data to a PC, Goldberg’s Python appli-cation software converts the signals to the frequency do-main for analysis.

You can read about the ap-plication in more detail and obtain the Python source code from the online version of this a r t i c l e ( w w w. t m w o r l d .com/2011_09).

Martin RoweSenior Technical Editor

Mechanicalsystem

T&MW 1100-Martin-SSA-Scope-Fig 1.eps DIANE

Piezoelectrictransducer

Currentsensor

Input signal

Current signal

Oscilloscope

Vibrometer

Velocity signal

Laser

ComputerControlData andcontrol

An input signal excites a transducer to cause vibration in a mechanical system, which the oscilloscope measures.

NTAF“requester”

XMPP client

NTAF“provider”

XMPP client

XMPP server

NTAF “requesters” and “providers” of network resources communicate through an XMPP server.

TesT & MeasureMenT World www.tmworld.com sepTeMber 2011 19

establish communications between the tools and the equipment using standard XMPP message-passing technology.

The NTAF specification consists of two parts. TS-001 covers registry, dis-covery, and activation of NTAF-com-pliant equipment. TS-002 contains the syntax and content that describes the capabilities and actions of test equip-ment or network elements that an auto-mation toll can invoke.

“It’s basically an XML schema,” said Green. Using standard XMPP services, a network resource (tester or network element) can publish itself on the net-work and make its information avail-able to test-automation tools on the network.

Green then covered NTAF proxies, a part of TS-001 that descr ibes the capabilities of a tester or a network el-ement to the automation tools on the network. Proxies a lso manage net-

work resources. A network tester, for example, has many resources, but you may not want all of them running at once. An NTAF automation tool can launch a tester application through a proxy. When the test finishes, the au-tomation tool can release those re-sources for later use.

TS-002 describes NTAF harnesses, which define the actions that a tool can perform, the action’s parameters, and the parameters of the associated re-sponses (a tool can make these capabili-ties public on the network, either di-rectly or through a proxy). Parameters can be simple values but may also in-clude tables, structured data, or XML data. The NTAF specification also de-f ines a mechanism for initiating f ile transfers between NTAF entities; the mechanism provides an eff icient ex-change of complex setup data or bulk test results.

Law from Spirent Communications described an example of how equip-ment and tools can register themselves on an NTAF network. Automation tools can identify NTAF-enabled de-vices on the network and communicate with them. Law descr ibed how re-sources can turn on or off as needed based on capabilities and testing needs. Network equipment and automation tools can serve as a requester or pro-vider, depending on the services an au-tomated test needs (figure). The NTAF XMPP server and the automation tools that run on it act as an arbiter between network elements and test equipment.

Martin RoweSenior Technical Editor

REFERENCE1. “Introducing the next generation of test automation & interoperability - the NTAF Specification.” June 22, 2011. bit.ly/lE0rlK.

Automating network test (continued)

20 SEPTEMBER 2011 www.tmworld.com TEST & MEaSuREMEnT WoRld

Measurement tips from readers

Measure resistance and temperature with a sound cardMeasure resistance and use free software to convert to temperature.

Zoltan Gingl and Peter Kocsis, University of Szeged, Szeged, Hungary

Unless you add a measurement instrument to your com-puter, you have only the sound card as an analog I/O port.

You can use the sound card to digitize AC analog voltages but only within a limited range. You can, however, add some signal processing and measure a wider variety of signals, even those that produce DC or low-frequency outputs. For example, you can directly connect a thermistor to make a sound-card ther-mometer to monitor or record the temperature on PCBs (printed-circuit boards), circuits, heat sinks, and more.

Thermistors are popular temperature sensors because they allow easy detection of changes in resistance. Once you mea-sure a thermistor’s resistance, you can apply the following equation to find the temperature:

where RT is the thermistor resistance and TO is the tempera-ture in Kelvins at which the thermistor’s resistance is RO. You can find the value of b in a thermistor’s data sheet.

Figure 1 shows the easiest way to interface a thermistor to a sound card. The microphone input has an internal bias resistor, R, with a typical value of 2 to 5 kΩ. A DC bias voltage drives this resistor. The bias resistor connects the thermistor between the line or the headphone output and the microphone input, which forms a voltage divider with the internal bias resistor. Those components are all the circuit needs. Note that some microphone inputs may have different internal connections, so check yours before use.

You also need a sinusoidal signal because the sound card’s inputs are AC-coupled. The sound card’s audio output can pro-duce an AC voltage at the microphone input, whose amplitude is proportional to R/(R+RT). You can do a simple calibration

to find the output signal’s amplitude and the value of R by re-placing RT with known values, such as 0 and 10 kΩ.

A sound card’s measurement accuracy is worse than what you could achieve using a commercial data-acquisition card, but this ratiometric arrangement and calibration keep errors to approxi-mately 1% for resistor values of 1 to 100 kΩ. Even without tem-perature calibration, you should get temperature errors of 1 to 2 K with a 10-kΩ thermistor at room temperature. Accuracy de-grades to 3 to 5 K over the thermistor’s operating temperature.

You can download simple, free, and open-source software in Java that you can use as a simple ohmmeter, thermometer, or chart recorder under Windows or Linux. You can download a Java executable or the Java source code (Ref. 1).

You should consider adding protection to the sound card’s au-dio I/O ports by inserting series resistors. Typically, a few kilohms is all the circuit needs. You can also use an inexpensive USB sound card to spare and protect your PC sound card’s inputs.

You can add second and third thermistors by adding an exter-nal resistor divider (Figure 2). This lets you use both audio chan-nels and a third thermistor at the microphone input. In addition to using thermistors, you can use the sound card with other resis-tive sensors, such as photoresistors or potentiometric displace-ment sensors. You can even connect capacitive sensors if you add some more components and signal processing (Ref. 2). T&MW

RefeRenceS1. Gingl, Z., and P. Kocsis, “Sound-card thermometer/ohmmeter.” www.noise.physx.u-szeged.hu/edudev/thermometer.

2. Klaper, M., and H. Mathis, “2-Pound RLC Meter: impedance mea-surement using a sound card,” Elektor, June 2008, p. 64. bit.ly/l2lyzl.

This article originally appeared in the May 26, 2011, issue of EDN.

RTR

To DAC

To ADC

To VBIAS

Line output

Microphoneinput

Figure 1 The internal microphone bias resistor and the exter-nally connected thermistor form a voltage divider.

RT

To DAC

To ADC

Line output

Line inputR

Figure 2 You can add second and third thermistors to your system by adding an external resistor divider.

1T = 1

TO

1β

+ ln RTRO

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instrumentation

Keeping the measurements

flowingengineers at Ge measurement & Control solutions produce flow meters and moisture analyzers that give the right results.by martin roWe, senior technical editor

Billerica, ma—When you buy gasoline for your car or fuel oil or natural gas for your home, you expect an accurate measurement of the quantity you buy. The companies that supply those prod-ucts to your local gas station, oil-delivery company, or gas company also expect accurate and reliable

measurements when they make purchases from their suppliers.For all these transactions, the engineers at GE Measurement

& Control Solutions design and test meters that measure flow rate and calculate purchase quantities. In addition, the engi-neers also design and test moisture analyzers that ensure that natural gas contains only trace amounts of water.

The engineers start at the board level where they test circuits and software, then move on to test sensors and mechanical parts, and then test the entire system with tests that resemble actual customer use in oil and gas fields. Along the way, they make EMC (electromagnetic compliance) and environmental tests to ensure the products comply with regulations.

Measuring more than liquidWhen GE engineers talk about a flow meter, they are referring to the entire device that is inserted into a pipeline—electronics, sensors, pipes, and other parts. In addition to sensing flow and water, flow meters and moisture analyzers measure the tem-perature and pressure inside a pipeline and use those measure-ments to calculate flow rates and moisture levels.

Flow meters and moisture analyzers contain several inputs and outputs. Flow meters, for example, may produce pulse trains in which the pulse frequency represents flow rate. They may also produce 4–20-mA analog outputs that represent flow or another value such as temperature. Flow meters and mois-ture analyzers also have one or more communications buses such as RS-232/422/485, Modbus, Fieldbus, and HART bus. The instruments use these buses for receiving commands and for transferring data to a host computer.

Engineering tests start on the bench with simulations, after which design engineers build and evaluate digital control cir-cuits, signal-conditioning circuits for the sensors, and analog and digital output circuits. The GE engineers typically build several complete prototype units, on which they perform ac-curacy tests, functional tests, EMC tests, and environmental tests. Finally, the production department will use actual pro-duction processes to build a larger quantity of units for a pilot evaluation. Engineers then repeat all the tests on these units, which represent the final design. If everything passes, full pro-duction begins.

The test plans start as soon as design engineers begin de-signing electronics, sensors, and mechanical parts. Michael Gambuzza, the lead electrical engineer for the moisture and gas group, designs and tests the analog and digital circuits that go into a meter’s controls. While Gambuzza is designing elec-tronics, other engineers are developing test schedules, ready-ing the EMC lab, and preparing for environmental tests and flow-rate tests.

Although Gambuzza spends much of his time designing cir-cuits, he also tests them in complete systems. For example, after he designed the electronics for GE’s Aurora series moisture analyzers, Gambuzza ran tests in the optical lab. Why an optical lab? Because the Aurora moisture analyzers use the Beer-Lam-bert Law of Absorption. They measure reflected light and, through digital-signal processing, calculate the moisture con-tent in natural gas as it travels through a pipeline. (The Aurora moisture analyzer can measure moisture as low as 5 ppm.) Ana-log circuits, under microprocessor control, drive a laser diode over a swept-frequency spectrum (Figure 1).

“We generate a drive signal to a laser diode to sweep its input current,” said Gambuzza. “That sweeps the tunable diode laser through a spectrum of wavelengths. At a particular wave-length, you get the most light absorption because of the pres-ence of water.” The more moisture in a gas line, the more light


Design-verification and test engineer Dan Donaghey works with design engi-neers to develop test plans for new products.

ja

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(continued)

instrumentation

it absorbs, so less light bounces off a gold mirror.

Gambuzza and Dan Donaghey, a de-sign-verification and test engineer at GE, demonstrated a moisture analyzer test-and-calibration system in the optical lab (Fig-ure 2). Gambuzza often uses this system to run functional tests and accuracy tests on new or modified circuits. The test-and-calibration system uses a moisture genera-tor and a chilled-mirror moisture hygrom-eter as a reference measuring instrument and also to measure the dewpoint. Because laser-diode current and moisture content are known quantities, Gambuzza can test an analyzer for functionality and measure-ment accuracy. The system also measures temperature and pressure inside the flow line, because those conditions greatly influ-ence other measurements.

The system uses a series of valves driven by a National Instruments PXI chassis under LabView control. The calibration process begins with a calibration at known moisture concentrations in ni-trogen or methane. The system starts calibrating at the lowest moisture levels and then increases the levels. (Adding moisture takes less time than removing moisture.)

As the system increases the moisture levels and measures the results from the moisture analyzer under test, a host computer collects the measurements and calculates the differences between the meter’s measurements and those from the reference chilled-mirror hy-grometer. The software uses those differ-ences to calculate offsets based on tem-perature and pressure. Then, it builds a

curve-fit equation that it applies to the analyzer under test to linearize its mea-surements. Calibrating the moisture ana-lyzer’s accuracy at several moisture levels takes several hours, so the calibrations run overnight, and the engineers are able to run accuracy tests on the moisture ana-lyzer the next morning.

Planning a gamut of testsWhile Gambuzza is designing circuits and running initial bench tests, Dona-ghey plans tests from engineering evalu-ations through to production. Starting with engineering design specifications, Donaghey develops a spreadsheet that lists the tests a product will need to un-dergo prior to production. These tests include functional tests, accuracy tests, user-interface tests, EMC tests, and envi-ronmental tests. He also develops a bug-

tracking database where engineers can record problems that must be resolved.

Donaghey spends much of his time on user-interface testing for each new prod-uct and software revision. GE’s products have a series of menus that let users con-figure them. Some flow meters must op-erate behind glass enclosures, which re-quires operators to use a wand with a magnetic tip to operate the meter. As part of a user-interface test, Donaghey verifies that an LED flashes to indicate the active meter control. He also goes beyond requirements by testing a prod-uct by operating the meter without re-ferring to user documentation. “I often don’t read manuals after buying a new consumer product,” he explained, “so I assume that users of our products won’t read the manuals, either.”

Donaghey starts user-interface testing by creating a software menu map for checking menus and functions. He has automated some menu testing by using a meter’s communications interface to a computer. Test software can record his steps and recreate them. He must, though, manually test a flow meter when the test requires use of the magnetic wand.

In addition to listing the required tests for a product, Donaghey develops a test plan that specifies which tests a new prod-uct will need. After an engineering and marketing review, he writes test cases where he specifies the equipment, proce-dures, and reference documents that the tests will need. Accuracy tests, such as the one he and Gambuzza demonstrated, are among those that Donaghey develops.

Guaranteeing complianceGE engineers don’t wait for a com-pleted product to begin testing it. Even before GE engineers have a product’s firmware, they’ll send it to EMC engineer Charlie Martin, who readies the EMC lab and decides which national and international stan-dards will apply to a product. Martin runs EMC compliance tests on meters and analyzers for conducted emissions, conducted immunity, and ESD immu-nity. He also runs precompliance radi-ated emissions tests, using an outside lab for compliance tests. His test chamber limits tests to a distance of 3 m, but some standards call for tests in a 10-m chamber.

Natural gas in

Opticalhead

Detector 1

Laser diode

Detector 2

Thermoelectriccooler

Electronics

Analog and digital I/O Keypad

Display(moisture, temperature, pressure)

Natural gas out

Pressure & temperature sense

Sample cellAu mirror

Nitrogen feed Moisture

generator

Pressureregulator

Auroramoisture analyzer

under test

Chilled-mirrorhygrometer

To vent

Nitr

ogen

+ w

ater

FIGURE 1. A moisture analyzer detects moisture in a gas by measuring the amount of light that reflects from a mirror. Courtesy of GE Measurement & Control Solutions.

FIGURE 2. A moisture-analyzer test-and-cali-bration system compares the measurements from the analyzer under test to those from a chilled mirror hygrometer.Courtesy of GE Measurement & Control Solutions.

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“I test entire systems,” said Martin. “Sometimes, engineers send products before they’re functional, just to run ini-tial tests.” Those initial tests help design engineers verify that their protection circuits will properly protect sensitive components from power-line surges,

bursts, and voltage dips and from ESD (electrostatic discharge). These tests let designers uncover weaknesses in the de-sign and determine whether they have used protection circuits with the proper ratings or if PCB (printed-circuit board) traces need rerouting. If problems occur, Martin can consult with design engi-neers on ways to improve a system’s EMC performance.

The lab consists of a 3-m Panashield chamber and several test benches. The chamber, which Martin uses for compli-ance radiated-immunity and precompli-ance radiated-emissions tests, consists of an antenna from Schaffner-Chase (now Teseq) and a mast and turntable from Sunol Sciences. He uses a Hewlett-Pack-ard (now Agilent Technologies) EMI (electromagnetic interference) receiver for emissions measurements, a Kalmus (now AR) amplifier, and an IFR (now Aeroflex) signal generator for immunity tests. An Agilent AC power source lets Martin add disturbances to power lines for immunity testing. The lab also con-

tains several test benches for conducted, power-line, and ESD immunity tests. Martin built the benches in different sizes to accommodate an array of product sizes. He can join the benches together when a product is too large for one bench. Each bench has a ground plane that adjusts in size when Martin combines benches.

Martin also designed and constructed many parts of the EMC lab. For example, he specified the test equipment and the 3-m chamber. From his exper ience, Martin has learned to plan for techno-logical advancements, such as increased operating frequencies, when designing an EMC test facility. When he designed the 3-m chamber, he installed ferrite tiles on the walls that could absorb en-ergy and minimize reflections at fre-quencies up to 1 GHz. When standards called for measurements up to 3 GHz, Martin had to install additional Pan-ashield absorbing material.

When he designed the lab, Martin had to contend with interference from a nearby cell tower, so he added more

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EMC engineer Charlie Martin runs compli-ance and precompliance tests in GE’s EMC lab.


grounding than an EMC lab usually needs. In fact, the chamber’s ground connections go directly to its own ground rods at a point just outside the chamber. There’s only one ground point for the chamber and its associated test equipment, which eliminates the possi-bility of ground loops that can degrade measurement performance.

All of the products tested in the EMC lab run from 230-V/50-Hz power. To generate that power, the lab has a motor-generator that can produce up to 24 A. The test equipment, though, runs from 110-V, 60-Hz AC mains. Isolation trans-formers isolate the power for the equip-ment from the power for the building. Line filters are used on both the 230-V and 110-V outlets at each test station to minimize power-line noise.

Testing at the extremesNot only must GE’s flow meters and moisture analyzers comply with world-wide standards, they must also withstand the frigid cold of the Arctic and the blaz-

ing heat of the desert. To ensure that GE products work under those conditions, environmental test engineer Dave Gifford tests them at extreme temperatures, and he also runs HALT/HASS (highly accel-erated life tests/highly accelerated stress screening) tests, because the meters must withstand shipping to oil and gas fields. And they must withstand water as well.

Gifford tests meters at temperatures that may exceed operating specs. Gam-buzza may specify a temperature range of –20°C to 60°C, but Gifford often tests over a wider range, which gives him confidence that the product will operate as intended. Temperature tests typically run for 7 days (168 hr), during which time Gifford will ramp the temperature between the extremes of the range. In a temperature-storage test, Gifford leaves the units in a temperature chamber, un-powered, for six days. He also runs hu-midity test that range from 20% to 90%.

Flow meters vary in size depending on the size of the user’s pipeline, which can reach a diameter of 24 in. Because of that

size, Gifford can’t put some complete flow meters in his environmental chambers. He has to test the components separately.

GE’s environmental lab also has a water tank where Gifford submerges flow me-ters so he can test for water tightness. He places the meters in a tank to a depth of

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Lead electrical engineer Michael Gam-buzza designs analog and digital circuits that control flow meters and moisture analyzers.

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1 m. He also tests GE’s products for water leaks under a known pressure. To do that, Gifford built his own test apparatus.

“You have to get creative with testing, and you may need homemade test equip-ment,” he explained. He added plumbing to a tank that connects to a submersible pump. Water from that tank comes out of

a fire hose at 65 gal/min. Gifford then hoses down a meter on all sides and looks for leaks to ensure compliance with NEMA standards. Some tests require a special nozzle manufactured by ED&D, because it produces water flow at a known pressure. Gifford uses a GE flow meter to measure the flow rate through the nozzle.

Gifford also tests a flow meter’s trans-ducers. To do that, he needs to know how much water a transducer measures in a given amount of time, from which he can calculate the flow rate. For this test, Gifford uses a GE handheld flow meter to measure water that flows into a tank. When the tank has the desired amount of water, a gate opens to let the water flow out. Because Gifford knows how much water was in the tank, he can measure the time required for the tank to empty and thus determine the flow rate. He can check the accuracy of the flow meter in question.

Entire flow meters also require accu-racy testing. Senior engineer Nick Mollo runs those tests in the water lab, which has pipelines with up to 4-in. diameters. Larger flow meters go to an outside lab for accuracy testing.

In the water lab, Mollo records flow measurements as well as the temperature and pressure conditions that affect them. “We have two measurement methods,” he explained. “In the gravametr ic method, we use a tank that we fill for a known period of time and measure the weight of the water. From that measure-ment, we know how much water flowed into the tank, from which we can calcu-late the average flow rate.” The other method uses a calibrated inline magnetic flow meter as a reference standard. The gravametric method is more accurate, but it can test only until the tank emp-ties, which is about 20 s. Mollo uses the flow-meter method when he needs to run test for longer periods.

GE engineers understand the needs for accurate measurements in commerce. The world’s energy suppliers depend on GE engineers to develop and produce equipment that keeps the energy flowing at known quantities. t&mW

Environmental test engineer Dave Gif-ford performs high and low temperature tests and accelerated life tests.

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Charge-pumping measurementsA system that incorporates a pulse generator and a sensitive DC ammeter can reveal information about the quality of semiconductor devices.BY MaRY annE TuPTa, KEiThlEY inSTRuMEnTS

Charge pumping i s a well-known technique for character izing the semiconductor-dielec-tr ic interface of MOS structures. Labs can ob-

tain invaluable information about the quality and degradation of a device from ICP (charge-pumping-current) measurements, including information about the interface-trap density and the mean-capture cross section. To make ICP measurements, you must pulse a gate voltage and measure a DC sub-strate current simultaneously, so you need a test system that incorporates both a pulse generator and a sensitive DC ammeter.

Figure 1 shows a charge-pumping measurement circuit. Essentially, the gate of a MOSFET connects to a pulse generator, which repeatedly switches the transistor from accumulation to in-version. While the gate is pulsed, a re-combination process of majority and minority carriers occurs on the rising and falling edges of the pulses, causing a current to flow in the opposite direc-tion of the normal drain-to-source cur-rent. You can measure this induced cur-rent, the ICP, by connecting a sensitive ammeter to the substrate, or bulk ter-minal, of the MOSFET.

Although several charge-pumping methods have been developed, the basic

technique involves measuring the sub-strate current while applying voltage pulses of fixed amplitude, rise time, and frequency to the transistor gate. The source and drain are either tied to ground or slightly reverse-biased. In the two most commonly used methods, the measurement equipment must apply the voltage pulse either with a fixed amplitude while sweeping the base voltage or with a fixed base voltage while sweeping the voltage amplitude of the pulse.

In the first method, the fixed-ampli-tude/voltage-base-sweep method, the amplitude and period (width) of the pulse are kept constant while the base voltage is swept from inversion to ac-cumulation. Figure 2 illustrates both this output waveform and the resulting curve of the ICP as a function of the base voltage. From this data, you can use the following equation to calculate the interface-trap-charge density:

NIT = ICP/(qfA)

where:NIT = interface-trap-charge density in cm–2,ICP = charge-pumping current in A,f = test frequency in Hz,q = electron charge (1.6022 × 10–19 C), andA = channel area in cm2.

INSTRUMENTATION

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VBASE

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Depletion

Inversion

Accumulation

FIGURE 1. This basic charge-pumping measurement circuit incorporates a pulse generator and ammeter connected to a MOSFET under test.

FIGURE 2. The pulse waveform for a fixed-amplitude/voltage-base sweep (top) results in the corresponding charge-pumping current curve (bottom).(continued)

32 SEPTEMBER 2011 www.tmworld.com TEST & MEaSuREMEnT WoRld

INSTRUMENTATION

The following equation enables the extraction of the interface-trap density as a function of band bending:

DIT = ICP/(qfAΔE)

whereDIT = interface-trap-charge density in cm–2eV–1, andΔE = the difference between the inver-sion Fermi level and the accumulation Fermi level (Ref. 1).

In the second common technique, the fixed-base/var iable-amplitude-sweep method, the base voltage is kept constant in accumulation, and the vari-able voltage amplitude is pulsed into inversion. As the voltage amplitude (VAMP) of the pulses increases, ICP satu-rates and stays saturated (Figure 3).

In addition to these two methods, eng ineer s may also employ other charge-pumping techniques. For ex-ample, they can use different voltage waveform shapes, vary the rise and fall times, or measure the charge-pumping current as a function of frequency.

Hardware configurationThe equipment used to make charge-pumping measurements has tradition-ally included a pulse generator and a DC ammeter capable of measur ing current in the picoamp range. Figure 4 illustrates a more modern configuration that employs a semiconductor parame-ter analyzer with an integrated pulse

generator and two SMUs (source-mea-sure units), one of which is equipped with a preamplifier for measuring ultra-low currents.

The pulser connects to the gate of the MOSFET in order to apply pulses of sufficient amplitude to drive the de-vice between inversion and accumula-tion. Depending on the charge-pump-ing method used, the pulser allows users to sweep the pulse amplitude, sweep the base voltage, adjust the r ise and fall times, and vary the test frequency. The test frequency is usually in the kilohertz to megahertz range.

As shown in Figure 4, SMU1 con-nects to the bulk terminal and measures the resulting substrate current. Given that ICP is often in the nanoamp or pico amp range, an SMU equipped with a preamp is typically required to achieve the necessary sensitivity.

The source and drain terminals of the MOSFET are tied together and connec t ed t o t h e s e cond SMU (SMU2), which applies a slight reverse bias (VR). If VR = 0, then the source and drain terminals can be connected to the ground unit rather than to SMU2.

To prevent oscillations and minimize noise, it is important to connect the LO (common) terminals of all the SMUs and the pulser as close as possible to the DUT (device under test). To mini-mize noise caused by electrostatic inter-ference in low-current measurements,

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FIGURE 5. These curves show the results of measuring charge-pumping current as a function of the base voltage (a) or as a function of pulse amplitude (b).

VG

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FIGURE 3. The pulse waveform for a fixed-base/variable-amplitude sweep (top) results in the corresponding charge-pumping current curve (bottom).

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Pulser SMU2

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Source

ICP

FIGURE 4. In this configuration for charge-pumping current measurements, a pulser applies pulses to the gate of a transistor under test. The SMU2 voltage source supplies a reverse bias to the source and drain (which alternatively can be tied to common ), while SMU1, which includes a preamplifier, measures ICP.


INSTRUMENTATION

engineers must shield the DUT by placing it in a metal enclosure with the shield connected to the LO terminal of the SMU.

Charge-pumping-test variationsYou can add software libraries to the setup shown in Figure 4 to automate both the fixed-amplitude/voltage-base-sweep and the fixed-base/variable-am-plitude-sweep charge-pumping tests (Ref. 2). You can also use this setup to perform several variations on those basic methods; in all of the methods, except where modifications are noted, the source and drain terminals are tied to ground: • In the base-sweep technique, the tester sweeps the base voltage of the waveform while keeping the amplitude of the pulse constant (Figure 2). It graphs ICP as a function of the base volt-age (Figure 5a). A modification to this technique adds a second SMU to apply

a DC voltage bias to the source and drain terminals.• In the amplitude-sweep technique, the tester sweeps the amplitude of the pulse while keeping the base voltage constant (Figure 3). It graphs ICP as a function of the pulse-amplitude voltage (Figure 5b). As with the base-sweep technique, you can modify this tech-nique by adding a second SMU to apply a DC voltage bias to the source and drain terminals.• In the rise-time linear-sweep tech-nique, the tester performs a linear sweep of the rising transition time of the pulse, and it graphs ICP as a function of the rise time.• In the fall-time linear-sweep tech-nique, the tester performs a linear sweep of the falling transition time of the pulse and graphs ICP as a function of the fall time.• In the frequency linear-sweep tech-nique, the tester holds the amplitude, off-

set voltage, and rise and fall times con-stant and measures ICP as a function of a linear sweep of the test frequency. In the frequency log-sweep variation, the tester graphs ICP as a function of a log sweep of the test frequency. T&MW

REFERENCES1. Groeseneken G., et al., “A Reliable Ap-proach to Charge-Pumping Measurements in MOS Transistors,” IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, January 1984. pp. 42–53. ieeexplore.ieee.org.

2. “Performing Charge Pumping Measure-ments with the Model 4200-SCS Semicon-ductor Characterization System,” Applica-tion Note 3066, Keithley Instruments, 2010. www.keithley.com.

Mary Anne Tupta is a senior staff applica-tions engineer at Keithley Instruments in Cleveland, OH, which is now part of Tek-tronix. Tupta earned an MS in physics and a BS in physics/electronic engineering from John Carroll University in Cleveland, OH, and she has been an engineer at Keithley for more than 20 years.

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SEMICONDUCTOR TEST

Speeding SOC testProtocol-aware ATE hardware boosts the efficiency of parallel-site and concurrent tests for SIP, SOC, and MCM designs.By TiM lyonS, TERadynE

Integrated semiconductor prod-ucts often include building blocks from a variety of sources that are implemented as an ASIC, as indi-vidual dies on a common sub-strate, or as stacked dies connected

through vias. In all cases, individual blocks commonly have their own time base, communication bus, and perhaps even free-running clocks. For example, the processing unit of a netbook or tab-let may have interfaces that let it com-municate with external networks, high-definition televisions, and cellular networks as well as interfaces for internal PCI, memory, flash, and display buses.

Each of these interfaces has a different standardized timing and protocol, and testing each of them with a traditional tes-ter can greatly slow down your through-put (Figure 1). A better option for pro-duction test of complex packages is to perform multisite parallel testing with an ATE (automated test equipment) system that includes a PA (protocol-aware) tester.

For test purposes, each separate block of a semiconductor requires a digital test instrument to align itself in frequency, phase, and data against the output timing of that block. Although the exact fre-quencies are known in the test environ-ment, because they are mathematically derived from tester-sourced input clocks, the phase timing of output edges and the location of data words within the larger stream of bits are unknown. For tradi-tional ATE architectures, the test pro-

grammer must implement a match loop using a common fail flag to search for the timing of the output edges and must im-plement a search for unique patterns bur-ied in continuous data streams. The pro-grammer also must manually compensate for round-trip delay, digital pipelines, ana-log latency, and asynchronous time bases. The table shows the typical logical pro-gramming flow for testing interactions among concurrent blocks in a device. The flow is repeated serially for each test site.

Verifying functional performanceThe complexity of programming and test-instrumentation management can make it difficult for engineers to verify a

device’s functional performance and the interactions among its separate blocks. A traditional tester typically has one or two fail flags that must be shared among blocks and must be reset by the test con-troller between each timing search. The resulting measured and corrected timing for a block will need to be repro-grammed with a slow asynchronous test controller broadcasting new timing to all of the affected instruments. The pro-gramming process is handed off for the next block and repeated serially.

Parallel-site testing further compli-cates the testing of asynchronous blocks. After a single site is programmed cor-rectly, the process is handed off and re-

Test

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Serializedflow

2 levels ofconcurrency

3 levels ofconcurrency

FIGURE 1. Complex devices implemented with concurrent blocks present test-man-agement and programming challenges for both concurrent test and parallel-site test.

www.tmworld.com TesT & MeasureMenT World

SEMICONDUCTOR TEST

peated for other parallel test sites and repeated again for every timing, level, and temperature parameter. The problem rapidly becomes a daunting program-ming challenge that complicates code maintainability and leads to inefficient testing. For example, every 1% of serial-ized overhead in single-site test will translate into an 8% reduction of parallel efficiency for octal-site testing, assuming all else is 100% parallel efficient. Clearly, improvements in efficiency have real benefits in reducing test costs and im-proving capital equipment usage.

You can resolve these test challenges by using an ATE system that includes hard-ware-based PA test. A PA tester can stim-ulate the device under test, measure and interpret the device response, and then re-stimulate the device with new data based on the timing and message content of the device response, all without the need for a programmer to write code. The PA tester can form the stimulus and response in compliance with standard protocols that define variability in bit pat-terns, data frequency, error encoding, la-tency of response, and code scrambling.

A USB 3.0 exampleFor example, a USB 3.0 interface may be one of many bus interfaces incorporated in a larger integrated device. For tests per-formed with a traditional tester architec-ture, a programmer must derive the cor-

rect packetized data from the USB 3.0 standard, perform 8b/10b encoding on the data, and program the tester to stimu-late the interface at a nominal 5 Gbps and be compliant to the wake-up sequence.

After a varying time allowed by the standard, the device provides a response to the wake-up sequence at a nominal data rate, which may be slightly offset or slightly modulated with spread-spectrum clocking. The programmer must imple-ment a match loop to derive the phase and frequency of the output bits, repro-gram the digital-receiver timing, and then implement a second match loop to detect the packet boundaries. There may be a need for a third match loop to locate the actual packet data.

After all these interactions, if the wake-up sequence is just part of the larger wake-up of the whole device, the pro-grammer must perform match loops to wake up the other buses on the device. Then, the process must be repeated for the next parallel site. Due to the limits of traditional testers, each step uses one of only a few fail flags and relies on a central test controller to reprogram timing.

To improve this process, Teradyne has developed a PA engine that provides a new programming interface (Figure 2) for its UltraFLEX tester. Local to the digi-tal pin electronics, the hardware-based PA engine can stimulate and respond to the DUT (device under test) in compliance

Transactionmemory

RX commandlogic

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FIGURE 2. The UltraSerial10G protocol-aware test instrument for Teradyne’s Ultra-FLEX platform includes parallel independently programmable protocol engines with local intelligence for measuring device response and providing test stimulus. The in-strument includes logic and memory blocks, including RX CMEM (receive capture memory) and TX SMEM (transmit source memory).

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with the selected protocol. For the USB 3.0 example, the local engine initiates the wake-up sequence and expects a compli-ant response. It can locally decode and en-code packets and data, and it can control timing in compliance with the standard. Only for the highest data rates will the local decoding not keep up with received packets and require non-real-time pro-cessing. The protocol engine detects DUT timing and measures the timing values. If the values are not in compliance with the standard, the tester reports the result to the test controller, and the DUT is failed or retested.

The test programmer can focus on understanding the data and messaging and is relieved of the burden of force-fitting an inherently statically predicted digital system to the variable timing and encoding of a semiconductor device’s complex protocol. The complex series of steps described in the table could be re-placed by a simple series of calls already verified to be compliant with the rele-vant standard, such as:

“dataOut = pcie(write, Addr, <array>)”

Although conceived as an efficient method for rapidly developing tests for standard interfaces, the addition of a hardware-based PA tester enables an ATE system to rapidly detect an output clock, align itself to the clock’s phase, and correctly detect and decode data words within the related interface bus. This functionality also has the potential to greatly improve throughput.

For example, a complex test program can have well over 100 pattern starts. If each pattern start requires a phase align-ment against the DUT output data, there

will be 100 match loops per interface that may need to be serialized per inter-face. Each match loop needs to be fol-lowed with a timing reprogram for the digital instrument connected to the interface.

For a traditional tester, each timing re-program and fail flag reset may consume 5 ms of tester time. It’s not unusual to spend 500 ms of total time that then se-rializes across multiple parallel test sites. A built-in PA tester can achieve much faster round-trip performance. The 5-ms match-loop and reprogram time can be reduced to as little as 100 ns, and the programming code will be easier to maintain.

In fact, a PA test architecture can pro-vide independent hardware PA engines to every eight digital pins, providing true parallel-test capability across the entire DUT for all test sites. The negative im-pact on parallel test efficiency caused by match loops vanishes.

A full PA hardware architecture not only speeds test development and im-proves programming code maintainabil-ity, it also has the unexpected side benefit of providing improved test capability for parallel and concurrent test, as it distrib-utes parallel control and response across the digital instruments. As a final bonus, PA directly addresses the thorniest of par-allel test-programming challenges. T&MW

Tim Lyons is an applications engineer in the Semiconductor Test Division of Tera-dyne in North Reading, MA, with 24 years of experience. He is focused on SerDes, jitter, and high-frequency analog test solu-tions. Lyons has an MSEE degree concen-trating in digital-signal processing from Tufts University.

Start test:Power and provide input clock to block APower and provide input clock to block BPower and provide input clock to block C

Block A:Ignore blocks B and CProgram nominal output timing for block AAssign shared time measurement to block A

pinsEnter search loop to detect block A output

timingReprogram block A output timing

Block B:Ignore blocks A and CProgram nominal output timing for block BAssign shared time measurement to block B

pinsEnter search loop to detect block B output

timingReprogram block B output timing

(Repeat for all logic blocks)Functionally stimulate all blocksFunctionally test all blocks’ outputs

Table. Logical programming flow in traditional ATE architectures

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OTA test enclosure handles MIMO devices

The octoBox OTA (over-the-air) test station enables OTA testing of conventional and MIMO wireless devices in a customizable, refrigerator-sized anechoic enclosure. It is applicable to the design, test, and verification of multi-radio devices, such as smartphones and USB dongles.

The dual-chamber RF enclosure houses isolated and controlled OTA test setups for production, quality assur-ance, and R&D test. The self-contained test station incor-porates test instrumentation, test antennas, and an easily accessible chamber for the DUT (device under test).

To achieve repeatable OTA test results, octoBox can be customized to ensure far-field coupling between the DUT antennas and the test antennas, as well as to ensure uni-form antenna fields between the DUT antennas and the test antennas with no nearby nulls that can cause sharp amplitude gradients in the field. A single octoBox allows the simultaneous parallel testing of eight or more fully as-sembled smartphones through their antennas.

octoBox provides isolation up to 6 GHz. All power and data lines entering the box employ feed-through filters. Signal reflections from the metal walls of the octoBox are absorbed by specialized absorptive foam.

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modular instrumentation

September 2011

It has been more than a year since Revision 4.0 of the VXI specification

was finalized in May 2010. To learn what impact VXI 4.0 will have on the test industry, I spoke with Tom Sarfi, the VXIbus Consortium president.

Q: What prompted VXI Rev. 4.0?A: More and more applications re-quire test instruments that can supply more power and increased data throughput, particularly in the high-speed digital and data-acquisition domains. While the VXIbus has been an excellent platform for high-perfor-mance applications, there were certain limitations in the specification that pre-sented challenges for instrumentation suppliers. The VXI Consortium saw an opportunity to leverage the specifica-tion’s ties to the VMEbus and adopted a few of the enhancements that have occurred on that platform over the years. The result was additional power and bandwidth capacity in the VXIbus core infrastructure to better satisfy the emerging application requirements.

Q: What bandwidth improvements has the Rev. 4.0 spec brought to VXI?A: We addressed bus bandwidth in two ways. One was to adopt the 2eSST [dual-edge source-synchronous] proto-

col to achieve rates to 320 Mbytes/s on the backplane. We also added a VITA 41 VXS [VMEbus switched-serial] bus connector to support PCI Express im-plementations. The backplane offers switched routing for up to 12 modules with links supporting 2 Gbytes/s in each direction and an aggregate bandwidth up to 8 Gbytes/s to and from the host.

Q: What about the power issue?A: Using the VME-64 five-row con-nector allowed VXI Rev. 4.0 to pro-vide more power lines to each module, supporting up to 418 W per slot. In addition, we added 3.3 V to the tradi-tional rail power options.

Q: How does Rev. 4.0 fit in with earlier VXI equipment?A: One of the objectives was to ensure backward compatibility with legacy products. The 4.0 backplane was de-signed to accept 3.0 and earlier cards.

Q: What application areas will benefit from Rev. 4.0?A: In the high-speed digital domain, Rev. 4.0 will be useful as the increase in power will allow for increased volt-age levels and higher slew rates than what is commonly available on the market. Data-acquisition applications such as vibration and acoustic analysis and digital-bus emulation will all bene-fit from the ability of Rev. 4.0 to sup-port more channels and higher data-throughput rates to disk. In some ap-plications, like signal switching, the previous specifications were sufficient, and end users can continue to use those cards alongside Rev. 4.0 modules.

Q: What kind of Rev. 4.0 equipment has become available?A: One of the first devices out was a slot 0 card using the 2eSST protocol and offering a PCI Express link to a host controller. Cards like this are im-portant in VXI because the flexibility in remotely interfacing to a VXIbus main-frame is a valuable and unique ability of VXI. High-speed digital-bus emula-tion modules have also been introduced, as well as high-speed data-acquisition cards. Also, a lot of vendors are keeping up with operating system changes by introducing drivers that support 64-bit OSes such as Windows 7.

Q: What’s next for VXI that Rev. 4.0 enables?A: We can expect to see carrier cards that can adapt other modular card types to VXI. For instance, VME mod-ules and XMC mezzanines that provide digital-signal processing and high-per-formance CPUs can be adapted to work in a VXIbus environment, and simple carriers will allow VXI 4.0 to support PXI and PXI Express modules with no software changes needed. Ac-cess to all this capability will make VXI bus one of the most versatile mod-ular instrument platforms available for years to come.

VXI 4.0 adds power and bandwidthBy Richard A. Quinnell, Contributing Technical Editor

MODULAR INSTR UMENTATION TEST REpORT • September 2011 41w w w . t m w o r l d . c o m

T e s T R e p o R T

42 Editor’s note

42 Highlights

44 USB test instruments provide portable modularity

InsIde this report

Tom sarfipresidentVXIbus Consortium

42 September 2011 • M O D U L A R I N S T R U M E N T A T I O N TEST REpORT w w w . t m w o r l d . c o m

High-res PCIe digitizers offer 16-bit resolutionThe Oscar CompuScope digitizers from Gage Applied Technologies offer two or four digitizing channels with 12, 14, or 16 bits of vertical resolution and sampling rates of 100 Msamples/s per channel. The Oscar digitizers come with 1 Gsample or more of dual-port memory and support data streaming, which allows waveform data to be transferred directly to PC RAM.

The boards operate in a full-length eight-lane (x8) Gen2 PCI Express slot and provide a maximum theoret-ical throughput of 4 Gbytes/s. In op-eration, though, bus latencies and handshaking protocols limit the maximum sustained throughput to about 3 Gbytes/s.

The dual-port memory architecture allows the memory to be simultane-ously written to and read from. Data can be streamed to a high-speed hard-drive array with no programming. You can also incorporate the data-stream-ing functionality into a C application

program to analyze, display, or trans-fer the data stream during acquisition as required. Drivers for Windows 7, Vista, XP, and 2000 are supplied with each board, as is a Lite Edition of GageScope PC oscilloscope software. www.gage-applied.com.

PXI modules simulate fault conditionsPickering Interfaces has introduced the 40-197 and 40-198 fault-insertion PXI modules that can be used within an au-tomatic test system to simulate com-mon fault conditions, such as an open, a short to ground, or a short to other connections in a device under test.

The 40-197 provides up to 35 fault-insertion channels that can be con-nected to any of four fault-bus con-nections, each having two different conditions. Each channel can switch up to 220 VDC at 60 W.

The 40-198 furnishes up to 20 fault-insertion channels that can be connected to one of two fault-inser-tion buses, each of which has three optional fault definitions. Each chan-nel can hot-switch up to 110 VDC at 150 W. www.pickeringtest.com.

Contact Richard A. Quinnell at [email protected].

Vindication at lastBy Richard A. Quinnell Contributing Technical Editor

Back in the mid-’90s I was a technical editor with EDN,

working on a “hands-on” project using the newly released Universal Serial Bus. This was revision 1.1, the first to begin entering the mar-

ket. It was so new I had to get beta soft-ware from Microsoft in order to access the bus on the new com-puter I was using.

My goal was to evaluate the USB as a data-acquisition channel for test-and-measurement pur-poses. The plug-and-play connec-tivity and host-power attributes of USB convinced me that there was tremendous potential for using the bus to implement highly portable instruments. I wanted to see how well it actually worked in practice.

Well, it didn’t go smoothly. What I finally wrote about the bus in Octo-ber 1996 was entitled, “USB: a neat package with a few loose ends.” There were some problems with that first release.

From what I discovered research-ing the feature article in this Test Report, however, it seems that those early problems have long since been overcome (p. 44). USB is now well-established as a viable means for turning a PC into a test instrument.

A co-worker at the time thought that USB would only be good for keyboards, mice, and printers, and that FireWire was the way to go for high-speed external connections.

I got to be proven right. He, on the other hand, got promoted. Which is better, I wonder?

E d i t o r ’ s n o t E

MODULAR INSTRUMENTATION t E s t r E p o r t

USB digitizer handles 5 Gsamples/sThe PicoScope 6407 USB digitizer from Pico Technology provides high-speed data capture for almost any application. With four 1-GHz, 50-Ω ana-log inputs and a 5-Gsamples/s real-time sampling rate, the instrument can

handle a wide variety of signals, such as high-speed serial data signals; waveforms for auto-mated test rigs, prototype circuits, and high-fre-quency printed-circuit boards; and radio, laser, and radar IF signals.

A 1-Gsample memory buffer allows the 6407 to capture very long data records, while the USB streaming mode allows for continuous capture of unlimited amounts of data at up to 13

Msamples/s. In addition, the 6407 includes a built-in function generator and arbitrary waveform generator, plus an external trigger input.

The PicoScope 6407 connects to any computer with a USB 2.0 port run-ning under Windows XP, Vista, or 7. PicoScope software, supplied with the digitizer, provides all the functions of an oscilloscope and spectrum ana-lyzer, as well as advanced features, such as automatic measurements with statistics, color persistence, mask-limit testing, advanced triggering and se-rial decoding. www.picotech.com.

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44 September 2011 • MODULAR INSTR UMENTATION TEST REpORT w w w . t m w o r l d . c o m

The USB (Universal Serial Bus) provides PC connectivity with

many desirable attributes, so it is no surprise that test instruments have arisen that use the USB to link to a host computer. What may be sur- prising, however, is the range of func-tions and performance levels available from USB test instruments. Data- acquisition, signal-generation, mea-surement, and RF instruments are all available with USB connectivity, and engineers can mix-and-match multiple instruments to form a complete test platform.

True to their “universal” name, USB ports have become pervasive, available on virtually every personal and indus-trial computer in production. Even production-test systems based on the personal computer architecture offer USB ports. And for good reason. A USB 2.0 port (the most commonly available) provides hot-swappable plug-and-play connectivity, transfers data at rates up to 480 Mbps (faster than 100-Mbps Ethernet), offers host power to attached devices, and has the ability to connect 128 unique end-points to the host through a single port. The new USB 3.0 specification boosts data rates nearly tenfold.

To leverage the availability and sim-plicity of USB, a number of companies have created test instruments that link through USB to a host PC for process-ing, control, and display. The most common of these instruments are DSOs (digital storage oscilloscopes) and function generators, many from small companies that specialize in these portable instruments. The Aus-tralian company Esis and the UK-based Elan Digital Systems, for in-stance, both offer the USBscope50—a PC plug-in not much larger than a flash drive that accepts standard BNC probes (Figure 1). The instrument has a 75-MHz input bandwidth and can capture 8-bit samples at a rate of 50

Msamples/s in single-shot capture. For repetitive signals, the instrument pro-vides capture timing equivalent to 1 Gsample/s.

The two companies also offer a 12.5-MHz DDS function generator with 0.2-Hz resolution and ±10-V output, a 100-MHz clock and pulse generator, and a 50-MHz frequency/period counter, all in the same form factor. The modules are stackable to form a suite of interrelated instru-ments, using an adapter that permits four modules to share the same USB port. Thus, you can provide a test stimulus, measure output frequency, and examine two waveform channels using an ordinary laptop and a collec-tion of modules that could fit into a shirt pocket.

China’s Novatek offers a series of larger and higher-performance dual-channel DSOs with analog bandwidths ranging up to 200 MHz. The devices

also double as spectrum analyzers by using FFT (fast-Fourier transform) soft-ware on the host PC. The company also offers a DDS (direct-digital synthe-sis) arbitrary waveform generator for frequencies up to 5 MHz with 0.1-Hz resolution that also serves as a fre-quency counter with an input range to 2.7 GHz. Novatek’s dual-direction GPIB module allows the USB port to control up to 14 instruments with data transfer rates above 1 Mbyte/s.

Link Instruments in the US offers a dual-channel DSO with 100-MHz an-alog bandwidth and sample rates to 500 Msamples/s in single-shot mode. The company also offers mixed-sig-nal oscilloscopes that incorporate signal generators with the DSO. The MSO-19, for instance, is a combina-tion DSO, pattern generator, logic analyzer, and time-domain reflectom-eter, with all functions operating at 200 Msamples/s.

USB test instruments provide portable modularityBy Richard A. Quinnell, Contributing Technical Editor

Fig. 1 UsB instruments can pack considerable test capability into a tiny pack-age, such as this 50-Msamples/s shirt-pocket digital storage oscilloscope. Cour tesy o f E lan D ig i ta l Sys tems.



USB handles RF/microwave testWhile these DSOs and related instru-ments are the most commonly avail-able, there are other types of USB-based test equipment to be found. Both Telemakus and LadyBug Technologies, for instance, offer instruments address-ing RF and microwave test needs. Tele-makus has RMS (root-mean-square) detectors, vector modulators, signal generators, attenuators, and switches that serve a variety of RF and micro-wave frequencies ranging from the L-band to the X-band. LadyBug Technol-ogies offers sensors for continuous-wave, peak, profile, and average power measurements covering the 10-MHz to 26.5-GHz frequency range (Figure 2).

The USB test-instrument market is not limited to specialty companies, either. Both Agilent Technologies and National Instruments offer numerous

USB-based test instruments. NI, for instance, has more than 50 different USB instrument modules, including 6.5-digit DMMs (digital multime-ters), RF power meters, data-acquisi-tion units, thermocouple signal con-ditioners, and DSOs. Agilent has many similar types of instruments along with unique functions such as a 4x8 two-wire switch matrix and source-measure units with four-quad-rant operation.

The USB instruments from both companies can operate as stand-alone

devices or can be plugged into a chas-sis that aggregates several instruments into a test-equipment platform. The chassis enables triggering and synchro-nization of module operation as well as aggregating the command and data transfer for multiple instruments onto

a single USB port. Further, chassis mounting helps ruggedize the USB modules, providing added protection against field hazards. NI offers four- and eight-slot USB module enclosures and has recently introduced a one-slot CompactDAQ enclosure for USB, Eth-

Fig. 2 In addition to Dsos and data-acquisition units, UsB instrumentation provides RF and microwave test capabilities such as power meters and synthesized sources. Cour tesy o f LadyBug Techno log ies .

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46 September 2011 • M O D U L A R I N S T R U M E N T A T I O N TEST REpORT w w w . t m w o r l d . c o m

ernet, or wireless connectivity. Agilent has a chassis capable of handling six modules (Figure 3).

The use of a chassis to combine mul-tiple USB modules into an integrated test platform can push the bus to its limits. While a USB port can supply

power to the attached instrument, for instance, that power is limited to 500 mA at 5 V. As a result, chassis systems must use an external power “brick” rather than drawing from the host, and then supply power to the plug-in mod-ules from this external source.

Handling USB bandwidth limitsChassis operation also pushes against USB’s bandwidth capacity. The bus’s 480-Mbps bandwidth must be shared among all the channels that the instru-ments provide, reducing the data rate each can sustain. Aggravating the situ-ation is the fact that USB was not de-signed for reliable high-speed trans-fers. The USB protocol provides four types of communications: control, in-terrupt, isochronous, and bulk. All communications are initiated by the host controller, which polls the end-points of devices attached to the port to allocate bus capacity.

Of the four types, only control transfers (which are typically short messages carrying setup or status in-formation) and interrupt transfers (which can carry a modest data pay-load) offer reliable data transmission with low, bounded latency. Isochro-nous transfers have the largest band-width potential and lowest latency, but have no resend mechanism. As a result, isochronous transfers can lose data with no recovery. Bulk transfers offer a reliable means of transferring large files, but they operate on a space-available basis and provide no guarantee of bandwidth or latency.

The vendors of USB test instru-ments address this bandwidth issue in different ways. Some instruments, such as RF power meters, don’t have high data-transmission requirements and so work well within USB’s band-width limits. DSOs typically capture a signal at a high speed and send it to the PC for display later, while func-tion generators form their signals from pre-loaded patterns. Both uses can tolerate latency in the data trans-fers as long as the trigger or update rates are moderate.

In supporting its multi-instrument platform using USB, Agilent simply works within the limitations of stan-dard PC host USB drivers. NI, on the other hand, provides a patented sig-nal-streaming USB stack to replace the host drivers and help eliminate over-head in the protocol and boost achiev-able bandwidth. Both methods target applications that need single-point measurements rather than applications

half-page_island_pxi_TMW.indd 1 8/10/2011 9:39:37 AM



needing high levels of involvement from the user.

Similar limitations exist with GPIB instru-ments, though, accord-ing to Telemakus CEO Craig Walsh. He pointed out that users creating stimulus-and-response test setups using USB can be suc-cessful as long as they are aware of the delays inherent in USB data transfers. “The test pro-grammer has to know what events must happen in the right order and to manage how Windows handles the traffic,” said Walsh.

Compelling advantages for key applicationsIf the application can tolerate the limitations, though, USB instruments can provide a compelling alternative

to their larger competitors. The USB devices are easy to setup and use, are highly portable, and can be extremely low cost. An eight-channel, 12-bit USB data-acquisition module from NI costs less than $170, and a 200-Msamples/s DSO from Link In-struments sells for less than $800. As Walsh pointed out, this places many USB instruments within the spending-authorization limits of many engi-neers, allowing them to acquire a

“personal” suite of test instru-ments that they can use at

their convenience rather than hav-ing “to wait for

access to that $200K tester.” He added, “USB instru-ments can give people a lot of freedom to do testing that they might not otherwise have in

their work situation.”Other instrument vendors agree

that price is a major benefit of USB devices. “USB instruments are the best value for the money in applica-tions that can work within their spec-ifications,” said Edwin Hoh, market segment manager for Agilent’s USB instrument product line. “USB reaches out to certain customers per-fectly by being cost-effective and compact.”

Fig. 3 UsB instruments are available in a wide variety of func-tions, operating as individual units or by plugging into a chassis to form a complete test platform. Cour tesy o f Ag i len t Techno log ies .

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LaVaL TrembLayVp of engineeringmatrox Imagingdorval, QC, Canada

Laval Tremblay received his electrical engineering degree from Montreal’s École Polytechnique in 1980 and joined Matrox Imaging in 1983 after working at Mitel Semi-conductor and Northern Telecom. By 1986, Trem-blay had been promoted to project leader, working on the company’s first PC-based image-processor add-on hardware. By the time he was named direc-tor of engineering in 1994, Tremblay had already begun to set Matrox on a course to redefine in-dustry standards in image processing. He was named VP of engineering in 2004.

Contributing editor Larry Maloney conducted an e-mail interview with Laval Tremblay on trends in ma-chine-vision applications.

Q: Has the machine-vision industry recovered from the global recession?a: The industry has recovered exceptionally well as a result of the manufacturing sector leading the overall recovery. Major players in the industry—including Matrox Imaging—are experiencing record sales. Manufacturers, especially those in the electronics and semi-conductor sectors, better managed their in-ventories, having learned from the dot-com bubble. This discipline has resulted in an upsurge in demand for machine-vision components. Moreover, although the latest recession severely affected all economic activity, it had a greater negative impact on the financial, real-estate, and construction sectors. The question to ask, though, is how long can this strong resurgence be sustained?

Q: Which industries are leading the way in adopting inspection solutions based on machine vision?a: Industries like semiconductors, electron-ics, and flat-panel displays continue to be big consumers of machine-vision inspec-tion technology. Industries that are tightly regulated and those that need to mitigate potential liability—like food and beverage and pharmaceuticals—are also increasingly using vision. Plus, we’re seeing a rebound in automotive demand with the growth in electronics content for battery manage-ment, start/stop systems, onboard infotain-ment, and communications. LED lighting and new power-train investments, which promote smarter use of our scarce energy resources, are also creating new demand for machine vision in the automotive sector.

Q: What are some typical applications for the Matrox Supersight system?a: The Matrox Supersight computing plat-form is designed for high-throughput and computationally demanding vision applica-tions, such as semiconductor wafer and mask inspection and flat-panel-display in-spection. Among its key features is a unique PCIe Gen 2 switched-fabric backplane that removes I/O bottlenecks between installed devices. Supersight is also well-suited to

medical imaging, where applications de-mand high data and data/task-level parallel-ism and employ multiple CPU cores or GPU accelerator boards, or a mix of both of these processing technologies.

Q: Can you briefly sort out the land-scape of vision interface standards?a: For moderate-bandwidth applications, GigE Vision has become the preferred choice over IEEE 1394 and USB because of cabling advantages. GigE provides enough bandwidth for all but the highest-speed cameras, and cables can be as long as 100 m. Camera Link is holding its own for more exacting applications because of the better determinism, despite the fact that it requires specialized computer-interface hardware.

For high bandwidth, Camera Link is still king, although it is losing some of its domi-nance. This situation has prompted the cre-ation of the CoaXPress and Camera Link HS standards, which offer greater band-width over longer distances. Initially, we see CoaXPress as being complementary to Camera Link, but we do see it eroding the Camera Link market as time goes on. CoaXPress offers several advantages, such as the ability to transfer higher data rates over longer distances with simplified cabling.

Q: How have smart cameras changed the machine-vision field?a: It is not the camera hardware that is changing machine vision, but rather the software environment that is associated with the camera. Customers have certain expec-tations, such as quick-and-easy application development, which includes algorithms, the human-machine interface, and connec-tions to other equipment. Software plays a major role in meeting those needs. T&MW

machine-vision industry bounces back

Laval Tremblay discusses smart cameras and other machine-vision

technologies in the online version of this interview: www.tmworld.com/2011_09.

To read past “Viewpoint” columns, go to www.tmworld.com/viewpoint.

© 2011 Agilent Technologies, Inc.

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