Device complexity is increasing exponentially, and market windows are shrinking due to competitive pressure – resulting in increased demands on an engineering work force that cannot scale endlessly. The adoption of System Level Test (SLT) is exacerbating this challenge. A different set of tools, equipment and test techniques means additional specialized skills for these teams to master. Meanwhile, cost of quality demands are requiring the ability to shift left or right on a test-by-test basis. Test engineers must be flexible enough to adapt to varying tester capacity.
Continuing to silo design, design for test (DFT) and test will not lead to a successful path forward. It is no longer possible to perform initial bring up, test program debug and incremental development as it was done in the past. Every group must be comfortable working and developing together, sharing knowledge, and developing skills that contribute to a common goal. To make this a reality, having the right skills and tools available at the right time is crucial. Teams must embrace new processes and invest in modern development approaches to foster cross-functional collaboration and improved productivity.
This presentation will cover a range of innovative solutions to address these challenges. Tools that provide linkages between the design and test side can reduce initial bring-up effort while also eliminating, time-wasting, cyclical debug involving test and design engineers. Standard tools which limit the amount of custom test program code make it more intuitive to write and debug tests and make skills more fungible across platforms. We’ll cover tools that are used to quickly converge on problems in real-time, including allowing local and remote teams to work together from around the world on a single session with the best debug resources available in the environments they are most comfortable with. These tools, processes, and skills development leverage new approaches to make the existing workforce more productive, getting more devices into production faster.
