July, 2014
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eliminate the weaknesses associated with the first two options. The challenge was to find an ICT solu- tion that could be extended to best support the com- pany’s functional test requirements.
Selected Solution After researching various solutions in the mar-
ket, the manufacturer selected Teradyne’s Test - Station LH tester as the best solution for its test requirements. In addition to its high-performance ICT capabilities, the TestStation’s PXI functional expansion board capabilities were found to be unique among all ICT systems researched. The functional expansion board supports the installa- tion of PXI instruments in a chassis attached to a low-profile board that plugs directly into an accesso- ry slot of the TestStation backplane. The innovative and compact design simplifies addition of functional test capabilities to the system without expanding equipment floor space or complicating fixture tooling. The bottom of the board sup-
ports the addition of four industry- standard 3U PXI instruments, while the top half of the board is a signal distribution hub that supports rout- ing of the PXI instrument signals directly to the unit under test (UUT), to external GPIB instrument ports, or to the system analog bus (where they can be further routed to any pin in
The PXI instruments can be developed using popular
and intuitive graphical pro- gramming environments such as Labview, LabWindows/CVI, or Visual Studio.
the system). Additional signals are provided to connect the TestStation’s arbitrary waveform generator (AWG) and to synchronize the PXI instru- ments with the tester’s standard dig- ital-multimeter (DMM) instrument. Application programs to commu-
nicate and control the PXI instru- ments can be developed using popular and intuitive graphical programming environments such as Labview, Lab - Windows/CVI, or Visual Studio. Once created, PXI functional test proce- dures can be tightly integrated with an ICT program using TestStation’s Dynamic Programming Extension fea- ture. This feature provides a mecha- nism to link the tester run-time exe- cutable directly with external dynam- ic-link-library (DLL) routines. Pro - gram status and measurement vari- ables can be easily passed between the tester and external software applica- tions, providing maximum flexibility for test program developers. The process for implementing
the combined TestStation ICT/func- tional test solution for the dashboard controller board involved five steps:
Generating the ICT. This was com- pleted in a matter of hours using TestStation device library models and automatic test generators. The ICTs provide certainty that structural and assembly faults in the dashboard con- troller will be detected quickly and accurately. The original test solution relied on more complex functional tests to detect these defects.
Identifying required functional tests. This step involved reviewing the existing functional tests and iden- tifying those that were still required. Any functional tests that provided overlapping test coverage with the in- circuit tests were targeted for removal while those that provided
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supplemental coverage were targeted for integra- tion with the in-circuit tests. Many of the existing
Page 59
PXI Expansion Enhances Automotive Dashboard Testing Continued from previous page
functional tests could be migrated easily and re- used because of TestStation software support for external program DLL routines and the built-in hardware support for the industry standard PXI and GPIB instrumentation buses.
Installing required functional instruments. Once the functional tests were identified, the dash- board controller manufacturer could select the instruments that would be needed to execute these tests. It was determined that three PXI instruments (a CAN communication controller, a high-density resistor simulator card, and a high-accuracy count- er/timer) would provide the test functionality need- ed for the dashboard controller application.
Fabricating the test fixture. This step involved communicating fixture requirements for both the ICT and functional portions of the test program to the fixture fabricator. The ICT fixture wiring
Teradyne test station. Continued on next page
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