No abstract

TPS migration solutions address the problem of legacy ATE systems, which support the validation of Military/Aerospace systems, experiencing "end of life" issues. A cross section of ATE systems will be reviewed from both a hardware and software perspective, with specific emphasis on the challenges and solutions on TPS's using LASAR™ simulation. Solutions will be presented on how to migrate the existing test program sets to current technology at considerably reduced time and cost. These TPS software migration tools allow for the easy conversion and migration of functional test programs, with minimal debug to a new state-of-the-art test system. By retaining features, such as guided probe, fault dictionary, and many others, test programs developed in the 70's to the current 90's are easily ported and therefore supported for many more years to come. Special attention will also be given to discussing enhancements to legacy programs after migration with new software tools. The tools available today, combined with hardware advances can show improved test coverage and diagnostic capabilities over the original TPS on the Legacy system. Legacy test platforms include: GenRad, Teradyne, Computer Automation, Schlumberger, Factron and others.

No abstract

This paper describes why transferring test programs and fixtures from obsolete Automatic Test Equipment (ATE) to new equipment is not as simple as it should be. No one would argue that technology has made major advances on test in the last 30 years. Today, speed, overall performance, computing power and software tools are more sophisticated than 20 or 30 years ago, when the first ATE appeared. As these ATE are now heading for retirement and as the programs they were supporting still have a long life to live, one would think legacy replacement with new ATE to be a simple task. Unfortunately, this is seldom the case. We realize that old ATE had a number of cards up their sleeves to deal with. For example, high voltage technology, lack of Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) data, requirements for parametric tests, extensive usage of the guided probe, and many other aspects might be not so simple to be reproduced with modern, yet powerful ATE. The paper shall identify the specific constraints involved with old technology and give examples of success stories where new ATE has been adapted to respond to the challenge. Paraphrasing (in reverse) and old saying, it will be like "teaching old tricks to new dogs."