Integrated Circuits Testing: Remote Access to Test Equipment for Labs and Engineering

Abstract

Abstract-This paper concerns the local and remote use of an Integrated Circuits (IC) Automated Test Equipment (ATE) for both educational and engineering purposes. This experience was initiated in 1998 in the context of a French network (CNFM) in order to provide a distant control to industrial equipment for academic and industrial people. The actual shared resource is a Verigy V93K System on Chip (SoC) tester platform. The cost of such an equipment is close to 1M€, without taking into account the maintenance and attached human resources expenses to make it work properly daily. Although the sharing of this equipment seems to be obvious for education, the French experience is quite a unique example in the world. Here, practical information regarding IC testing and network setup for remote access are detailed, together with the associated training program.

Highly configurable low cost remote laboratory with integrated support for learning - Software and learning support

“…The motivation for, and the use of remote laboratory in the context of this article is somewhat different from what is found in most previous implementation, [7][8][9][10], were the motivation is to offer access to laboratories that would otherwise be inaccessible . The remote laboratory is now used as an addition to, and not as a substitute for physical laboratories.…”

Distance Learning Is Not an Online Face-to-Face – Observations in Microelectronic Education

“…This requires a perfect schedule and a careful preparation by the students' supervisors. This is for instance the case for the unique national circuit test system, a very expensive equipment located in Montpellier and remotely accessible by the French community [22]. Nevertheless, this assumes that the students have already conducted several experiments on physical benches.…”

Experiment Setup for Focused Learning of Advanced Servo Control of DC-motors

“…A remote laboratory installation [9][10][11][12] is a physical installation including circuits and machinery with signal sources and measurement units connected. In the case of the laboratory setup for the state feedback tracking controller of the electric machine presented in this paper, all the physical installations are readily set up for the students, and all parts of the hardware and software related to measurements of signals, signal conditioning and the driver circuits for the motor are pre-configured for the student.…”