One of Tekmos' New Testers

While we were negotiating over the Griffin III tester, we found another HiLevel on the surplus market.  This one was a model ETS780 tester, with 256 pins and an 8M vector depth.  It is a much older tester, but was a valuable at a reasonable price, so we acquired it as well. 

Along with the testers, we have acquired a new problem.  Each tester has a different mechanical interface.  In the past, we have just built a custom interface for a specific part to connect to a specific tester.  However, this approach has caused capacity problems as our volume has increased.  We frequently find ourselves in a situation where we need two different parts that are only testable on a single tester.  This results in the situation where one tester is running two shifts, while an adjacent tester is standing unused. 

Our solution to this is to create an interface that will connect any tester to any hardware.  Since many of our products are tested on a handler at the end of a cable, we are going to make that cable interface standard.  One part of that standard is to assign the tester channel number to always be connected to part pin number.  Channel 1 to connect to pin 1, and so forth.  Normal industry practice is to assign tester channels to pins in a pattern that produces equal physical lengths.  This allows the maximum timing accuracy.  In our case, we do not need that level of accuracy.  Most or our designs are old, and do not have critical timing specifications.  It does not matter if signal A arrives 500 picoseconds before signal B.