Mar 31, 2014 
The Tilt 12KN Test System with integrated Tilt® fixturing technology made its public debut at IPC APEX EXPO 2014 at the CheckSum booth.
New CheckSum Tilt 12KN tester employs revolutionary bed-of-nails fixtures from Everett Charles Technologies to combine high fault coverage and throughput with very low fixture cost. System is designed to replace flying probers at low- to medium-volume manufacturers with high product mix.
The Tilt 12KN is the innovative union of a full featured in-circuit test system from CheckSum, a leading supplier of board test and in-circuit parts programming systems, integrated with the unique Tilt universal fixturing system developed by Everett Charles Technologies (ECT), the world's leading manufacturer of fixtures for testing loaded printed circuit boards.
An In-Circuit Tester and Fixture System Designed to Replace Flying Probers
"The Tilt 12KN system is a brand new circuit board test alternative for OEM and contract electronics manufacturers with a medium to high mix of active board types, typically built in small lot sizes," stated John VanNewkirk, President and CEO of CheckSum. "While in-circuit test (ICT) always provides superior fault coverage, it has always required expensive bed-of-nails fixtures, whose aggregate cost is untenable in a high mix environment, where the investment simply cannot be justified. This requires manufacturers to compromise with flying probers and their inferior fault coverage or rely on a functional-test-only strategy, where manufacturing defects are basically impossible to identify. On the factory floor, depending on the board characteristics, a single Tilt 12KN system can achieve productivity levels that could take up to ten flying probers to match. For manufacturers relying on functional-test-only strategies the Tilt 12KN system delivers the diagnostic precision of in-circuit test without traditionally expensive fixture cost," VanNewkirk concluded.
Revolutionary Tilt Fixture Technology Slashes Bed-of-Nails Cost
Tom Merline, Director for North America Sales at ECT said, "The TILT 12KN employs ECT's patented low-cost Tilt® fixture technology[1]. Employing an advanced "tilt-pin" design and software originally developed for bare printed circuit board test fixtures, Tilt fixtures can access 0.38mm (.015") targets on centers as close as 0.6mm (.024") on printed circuit board assemblies by "zooming" into these targets. We've eliminated the need for expensive wired ICT fixtures and their long turnaround times by engineering the Tilt fixture to interface directly with the Checksum Tilt 12KN system. Tilt fixtures are rugged and maintainable, easy to store, and the reusable, solid ultra-sharp pins deliver outstanding contact performance over hundreds of thousands test operations. It all adds up to highly reliable fixtures with unsurpassed accessibility at an unprecedentedly low tooling cost of around US$2 per pin. Moreover, the Tilt 12KN system itself costs 20 to 30 percent less than a typical flying prober."
About the Tilt 12KN Test System
Tilt 12KN features CheckSum's new high-speed measurement system and significantly faster throughput than earlier CheckSum testers. The 12KN integrated fixture actuation system provides built-in dual-level capabilities for combining in-circuit and functional test, together with easy fixture changeover and comprehensive operator safety features. Available TestJet Technology[2], Boundary-Scan and CheckSum's MultiWriter part programming subsystem[3], as well as a power-on functional test option round out the Tilt 12KN test capabilities. The Tilt 12KN system with Integrated TILT fixturing technology is available equipped with 2500 or 5000 in-circuit test pins in a probe field of 58.4 cm (23") by 43.4 cm (16").
Average price for a 2500-pin TILT 12KN system is expected to be US$150,000. System shipment is 90 days ARO.
CheckSum is a leading supplier of in circuit test and on-board gang programming systems and services to the worldwide electronics manufacturing industry. Products and services include systems, fixtures, and programs that detect manufacturing process faults on complex SMT printed circuit assemblies and that provide value-added operations such as device In-System, On-Board Part Programming. With an installed base of almost 3,500 test systems at more than 200 manufacturing sites in over 40 countries, CheckSum helps customers ranging from automotive electronics manufacturers to global EMS providers increase productivity while reducing total test and manufacturing costs. CheckSum is headquartered in Arlington, Washington.
Everett Charles Technologies (ECT) is a leading manufacturer of electrical test products and services, including semiconductor test products, bare-board automatic test systems, Pogo® test contacts, and bare and loaded PCB test fixtures. With its recent acquisition by LTX-Credence Corp. (LTXC), the company is poised to provide total test cell solutions for the SOC and MEMS/Sensor markets and innovative solutions for the probe pin, PCB and PCBA markets. Corporate offices for Everett Charles Technologies are located at 700 E. Harrison Ave., Pomona, California, USA, 91767.
