Medalist i1000D In-Circuit Test System

Medalist i1000D In-Circuit Test System Description:

The Agilent Medalist i1000 in-circuit test (ICT) system is a low-cost in-circuit test solution which now comes with digital testing capabilities while maintaining its original low-cost fixture solution.

The Medalist i1000 in-circuit test (ICT) system answers the manufacturers’ need for a low cost ICT solution with just enough ICT tests to meet most test challenges in today’s fast changing technology environment, especially for cost-sensitive consumer electronics and computational products.

• Powerful desktop form factor
• Boundary scan & on-boar digital tests
• Easy & flexible deployment

Unlike other traditional manufacturing defects analyzer (MDA) test systems, the Medalist i1000 offers cutting-edge technology, including Agilent’s latest VTEP v2.0 vectorless test suite, which comprises the award winning iVTEP and incorporates the new Network Parameter Measurement (NPM) technology targeted at defect detection on power and ground pins for connectors.

This new vector-less technology provides added value to customers with a significant increase in test coverage that eludes many ICT providers that still employers the old Test Jet technology pioneered by Agilent that has already been made obsolete with the VTEP release.

The Medalist i1000 offers users two different fixture options. The first option uses a typical MDA-type fixture with cable connections. This provides users with affordable fixture options. The second option employs a vacuum-type fixture and a mechanical fixture lock-down system using electrical motors. This cable-less design provides fast fixture swapping time while maintaining high signal integrity, which is extremely important during digital testing.

What makes the Medalist i1000 affordable?

To increase customers’ confidence, Agilent offers a 3 year standard warranty* with free lifetime software updates with this new system. With no software updates license and additional 2 years standard warranty to customers, thus, the running costs are kept low.

The Medalist i1000 is the perfect technological bridge between most traditional MDAs and ICT with its MDA usability and ICT capabilities.

How does Medalist i1000 fair against a high end ICT?

As part of our Beta tests, Agilent had the Medalist i1000 placed on a manufacturing line that is used to test desktop motherboard.

The existing production line uses a high end ICT and Function Test (FCT) after the assembly and inspection process. The Medalist i1000 system is position in front of the ICT tester. The ICT will continue to operate in normal state with full coverage. Boards will be selected at random from the production line and tested on the i1000. Passed boards will then flow down to be tested again on the ICT. Test coverage correlations can then be performed by comparing the failures detected at both ICT systems.

Data collection is enabled in the i1000 to collect the serial numbers and results of the boards tested.

Mac address programming is performed using the ICT through the SPI protocol. The generation of the mac address to be program requires a software script to pull the mac address from the shop floor server. Programming of the actual mac address is not done on the i1000. However, the i1000 will program a default set of 256bytes into the same address of the eeprom that stores the mac address. These set of values are then checked and reprogrammed with the actual value at the ICT.

This is a good example of the Medalist i1000 providing "just enough test" by providing both analog and "digital test" that required only basic boundary scan and simple SPI programming.

Over a four days period, 3200 boards were tested with the Medalist ICT yielding the following results;-

Total nodes count tested is 1688. The real first pass yield achieve over the period of 4 days is 87.90% with the highest at 90.62% on just the third day of testing. The average lowest CPK is 17 and the highest CPK is 115. Analog test achieved 20% better than the high end ICT. The total test coverage achieved by the Medalist i1000 is approximately 1.2% higher than the ICT onsite. Visit the i1000 site to learn more now.