Q5 interview - Linda C. Rae, Keithley Instruments

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Linda C. Rae, executive vp and chief operating officer at the test and measurements company Keithley Instruments, talks to Electronics Weekly about the state of the test and measurement world today, the challenges facing test engineers, and making the job of test simpler for the customer...

What is the state of the test and measurement world today?

The state of the test and measurement world is tied very closely to the electronics industry. In general, electronics today is driven by consumer demand for smaller, more powerful, more connected computing and communications devices. Electronics companies respond with exciting new products that push the envelope of capability with new wireless protocols, new battery technology, new component and semiconductor technology all embedded in these devices in product life cycles that seem to accelerate with every new generation. All of this drives demand within the test industry for new methods of testing these innovative products and leading edge technologies.

With a new wireless protocol adopted, for instance, it's likely that new test routines and instrumentation are required. Every new advance in semiconductor miniaturization, down to 45nm and smaller, calls for advances in measurement science. The drive to produce the world's least expensive laptop or mobile phone, for example, also drives innovation in test, as the industry works to constantly improve cost of ownership and lower cost of test. All of this complexity leads to more test, since more data and analysis are needed to refine these new processes at the very highest levels of throughput on the production floor.

So what are the challenges these conditions create for test engineers?

The overarching challenges are how to improve performance while at the same time lowering cost of test. Improving performance, of course, can encompass many things and will differ with the application.

In the research lab, improved performance is typically a matter of greater measurement precision. In production applications, it can center around increased throughput while retaining repeatability and precision. Complicating matters in both of these applications is the rapidly changing environment described in the previous question; it seems that as soon as the measurement system or solution has been perfected, a new wireless protocol requires testing, or semiconductor device geometries experience another round of "shrink" on their way to 45nm, and the test system must be re-designed and often built from scratch.

Lowering cost of test in this environment means that instrument manufacturers must be creative in how they design new products.

• Are they backwards compatible with previous generations?
• Do they provide performance that combines the task of several instruments into a single tool or additional channels in a smaller form factor?
• Do they contain clever firmware and software capabilities so that the time required for system configuration and de-bug are reduced?

Reducing the cost of test can be achieved from a number of different vantage points.

What do test and measurement instrumentation companies need to do to meet these challenges?

Test and measurement companies must be continuously innovating in order to stay in front of these ever-changing demands and challenges. Part of that involves making instruments that are flexible and adaptable. For instance, an instrument that can be used for different tests in different environments or a single instrument with multiple functionality saves the investment cost of buying several instruments to perform individual tasks. Keithley recently introduced a powerful new switching mainframe that can be configured to include a 7½-digit multimeter (DMM), its Series 3700 System Switch/Multimeter. While each individual instrument (switch and DMM) offers impressive performance in its own right, combining the two into a single platform makes the task of system integration much simpler.

What examples illustrate how instrument companies are responding?

Many advanced materials, including nanotechnology and semiconductor-based materials, require a wide range of electrical measurements such as ultra-low current and/or ultra-high resistance characterization. Keithley's experience has been and continues to be in the area of low-level measurements. Because Keithley has been a pioneer in this area, we continue to push our measurement technologies to deliver lower sensitivities at increased throughput, which both improves production yields and lowers cost of test.

Another example can be found in the RF Vector Signal Generators and Analyzers Keithley has introduced during the past few years. Built on a powerful and adaptable Software Defined Radio architecture platform, these tools can be easily modified to test the constant parade of new wireless protocols that RF device manufacturers must test. The customer often no longer needs to buy new instruments to support new protocols, an important advance in capital re-use and lowering cost of test.

What can be done to make the job of test simpler for the customer?

System configuration, particularly for high channel count applications, is a particularly time-intensive portion of building and operating a test system. Many test engineers don't have the time, the desire, or even the software expertise to create test routines that often can require hundreds or thousands of lines of programming code. Keithley recently launched its newest line of SourceMeter Instruments that contains an embedded software tool called TSP Express, built on Keithley's Test Script Processor technology.

With TSP, all test routines, including advanced decision-making algorithms, can be performed by the instrument, as opposed to sending the readings back to the PC for decision making. As a result, delays due to GPIB traffic congestion are eliminated, and overall test times are greatly reduced, bringing the advantages of true "smart instrumentation" to the user. TSP Express improves upon that by now taking users from startup to real data capture faster than ever. For common I-V test routines, the user simply outlines test parameters in a series of pull-down menus; TSP Express instantly generates the dozens or hundreds of lines of programming code on its own required to perform the test, bringing a powerful combination of both speed and simplicity to the engineer's test bench.

Keithley is also moving toward incorporating the LXI instrument interface standard into new products. LXI, or LAN eXtensions for Instrumentation, is an industry standard that creates a common language for connecting instruments to the Web and to each other. LXI allows customers to reduce setup and integration time by connecting directly to the standard ports on their PC without specialized cards and cables or expensive Slot 0 controllers. Today, Keithley offers a full line of LXI-compliant instruments for a wide variety of test applications.

See also: Q5 - Interviews with electronics industry leaders
Read all the Electronics Weekly Q5 interviews. From ARM's chairman, Sir Robin Saxby, to touchscreen technology firm Zytronic's MD, Mark Cambridge, the business leaders share their particular insights on the UK electronics industry.

See also: Product information - products from Keithley Instruments

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