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58 PCB007 MAGAZINE I NOVEMBER 2021 Feature Interview by Nolan Johnson Nolan Johnson speaks with Christopher Cain from Keysight Technologies, who is passionate about a relatively new product and the market driv- ers leading up to the development of this solution. Nolan Johnson: Keysight announced a relatively new product that performs massively parallel board test and inspection. Let's talk about the market driv- ers leading up to the development of that solution Christopher Cain: Absolutely. Our target customers are typically those that do very high-volume elec- tronic assemblies. This solution is meant to test an electronic assembly to make sure that it's been assembled, the parts are functioning, the sol- dered joints are okay, and it programs. Almost everything today has a processor and associ- ated programming code that must be installed in Conclusion Using digital simulation, the TestWay so- ware tool creates a virtual copy of the physical world (digital twin). is allows what-if sce- narios to be played in the virtual world, to iden- tify the optimal physical flow, using theoretical results to control the real physical world. Once test programs are in place on the shop floor, reading back the actual test coverage to com- pare to the simulation results is necessary to compare and understand differences and take appropriate action. is EMS 4.0 workflow enables tremendous benefits in time-to-mar- ket, cost reduction and quality improvements. Design, test, OEMs, and EMS companies struggle to provide the DFT at the right time, however integration of a tool like TestWay into the design-to-production flow will greatly aid in creating a testable product that allows for good quality products to be produced. is tool makes good use of Industry 4.0 princi- ples like the digital twin, and big data analysis for DPMO to achieve results. By reducing bad products going out the door (improving the test coverage and reducing the slip rate) as well as the cost savings from reducing test strategy overlap between different strategies (which is oen unknown without a tool to identify this), the results can easily provide a cost savings and ROI for the purchase of a soware tool such as the above-mentioned. PCB007 William Webb is technical director at ASTER Technologies. manufacturing. The first instance of that software is so that the machine does that, and the massively parallel, by its very name, says we can do that on many units, up to 20 at the same time, which is important in industries like consumer electronics, consumer medical products, automotive electron- ics, and internet of things. In those markets, they're very driven by yield. These are the high quantity products. They also tend to have lower profit margins, so making sure that they can be manufactured and sold to custom- ers profitably is a very important attribute to them. Johnson: It sounds like a key area of attention for you in developing a product like this is operator effi- ciency and high throughput. Cain: Yes, absolutely. Throughput is the number of units under test in each period of time, and the value of the insights you gain by testing it, as com- pared to the investment cost, but with the unit in place and operating it. To read the full article, which appeared in the November issue of SMT007 Magazine, click here. Keysight's Massively Parallel Board Test