NOD Electronics can meet your ICT testing requirements of PCBA board, in order to enhance production stability & board cycle time. Professional ICT machines and custom testing fixture are integrated into PCBA manufacturing process with higher precision and effeciency.
What is In-Circuit Testing (ICT)?
The manufacturing of electronic assemblies involves many complex tasks that all carry the potential for something to go wrong. The fabrication of the printed circuit board assembly (PCBA), the placement of components on the board and the integrity of the parts themselves require testing to ensure the resulting end product meets quality standards. The verification process can be expensive and extremely time-consuming. One method that assists original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and contract manufacturers in consistently meeting defined parameters during production runs is in-circuit testing (ICT).
IN-CIRCUIT TEST EQUIPMENT CONSISTS OF A NUMBER OF ELEMENTS:
In circuit tester: The in circuit test system consists of a matrix of drivers and sensors that are used to set up and perform the measurements. There may be 1000 or more of these driver sensor points. These are normally taken to a large connector conveniently located on the system
Fixture: The in-circuit test system connector interfaces with the second part of the tester - the fixture. In view of the variety of boards this will be designed specifically for a particular board, and acts as an interface between the board and the in circuit tester. It takes the connections for the driver sensor points and routes them directly to the relevant points on the board using a "bed of nails".
Software : Software is written for each board type that can be tested. It instructs the test system what tests to perform, between what points and details of the pass / fail criteria.
These three elements for the major parts of any in-circuit test system. The tester will be used for a variety of boards, while the fixture and software will be board or assembly specific. In circuit test system are normally relatively expensive items of equipment. They are typically sued on high volume production lines. The fixture and programme generation costs mean that they are not viable for small runs of less than 250 to 1000 items. A cost analysis should be undertaken to ensure that the cost of generating the fixture and programme is viable.
