Development of high-density RF board diagnostic program

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Date
2010
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Alabama Libraries
Abstract

This thesis describes the development and application of a software tool. RF Analyzer and Diagnostic Program Generation Tool (RADPro) has been developed to automate the process of testing the RF Device Interface Boards (DIB). DIBs are essential components for testing ICs and they contain mixed-signal and RF circuits with several active and passive components that are needed to simulate test conditions for ICs. A new integrated software environment has been developed to automatically generate functional tests for board verification. This software environment utilizes the schematic information, DIB-specific constraints, accessibility provided by the test hardware and instrument automation tools to generate a functional test program. The output of the tool is a generic test specification that is independent of test hardware platform. RADPro has been developed for testing RF DIBs at Texas Instruments Inc. Test execution has been performed on several RF DIBs and the test results have been recorded in the pseudocode format as well as look up table which provides a detailed analysis of all possible faults that can occur in the passive components. Complete automation of DIB test methodology implementation has been presented in this thesis. Automatic test generation by RADPro reduces design expenses and time to market significantly in comparison with the existing techniques. The testing methodology presented in this thesis produces the pseudocode for automating the test procedure on Very Low Cost Tester (VLCT) systems.

Description
Electronic Thesis or Dissertation
Keywords
Engineering, Electronics and Electrical
Citation