Hardware&Software Implementation Of Test Platform For Series Products

Nowadays, EMS (Electronic Manufacture Service) company providesthe complete manufacture&testing service so that it can survive in thesame type of enterprises. Since cost is critical for all the low-profit EMScompanies, the reduced cost of production line testing has become apressing issue. Many test engineers are constantly standardizing andmodularize test platform.Why so many test engineers focus on the the test platformstandardization and modulation? There are two reasons. First, consumere-products tend to become multiple configurations on one kind ofproducts or a series of products. And market demand for each product isnot so much. So it often appears that there is one kind of products whichare manufactured&tested in the same line in one day. But it isimpossible to individually set up a test station for each product. In orderto solve this problem, some test engineers separate test platform into twoparts, one is test base and the other is test head. Test engineers can builddifferent test heads in order to fit different configuration products. Itrequires the test station become modular. Second, due to the pressure ofcost and the customer requirements of the shortening test platform development cycle, test engineers begin to standardize and modularizetest platform. Standardized and modularized test platform can shortenthe test platform development cycle and provide customers with quicksolutions for products.So this paper will focus on the the test platform standardization andmodularization. The research will introduce the design and implement ofhardware and software of automatic test system for series products.Focal point of this paper is the switch system modularization&standardization. Currently, it is more popular that a lot of test engineersuse IO card (the input and output data acquisition card) to control relayas switching system. Its hardware and software design is relativelysimple, but the drawback is obvious. First, IO card (the data input andoutput acquisition card) is inserted in the engineering computer’s PCIslot, so that every time the relay board remove to the new test station,the connections of IO card and the relay must be re-welded. Obviously,the portability and flexibility is poor. The switch system can not bemodularized. Second, a large number of wire connections is notbeautiful and post-maintenance is not easy. Since IO card is designed bythe vendor, it greatly reduced the ability of independent development.2years ago, I am always involved in the development of the testplatform which is designed with IO card to complete the switch system.I was struck that each technician wire bonding is very hard&later debugging is often out of control. Because of the compliain fromtechnician&online supporting engineer we precisely start out todevelop new switching system. This paper will introduce two muchmore mature switch system of test platform which are successfullyapplied in the actual production.One switching system is designed with USB&I2C bus to control alot of relays. It also provides a certain number of input ports and outputports.The other switching system is designed by monolithic microcomputer&FPGA to control a lot of relays, and provide a large number of inputports and output ports.Modularized switch system make test platform easily be separated. Itmake test platform is highly modularized as possible. Because of themodularized switch system one test platform can fit the testing for aseries of products. Two sets of switch system compared to the previousswitch system of IO card, they are strong portability&modularity.Follow-up, I will also introduce the modularize software which is builtby Labview, Labwindows/CVI, TestStand and Borland C++.