3070 ICT Test System: In-Car Safety Systems

Motorola Angers drives reliability and productivity of in-car safety systems with the 3070 test system

Motorola Angers’ facility produces electronic products for the automotive industry. As the basis for critical in-vehicle safety systems, each board must be 100% reliable. Every product has to be tested individually, and to ensure that this rigorous testing regime doesn’t hinder assembly line productivity, Motorola Angers chose the Keysight Technologies, Inc. 3070 Test System.

Auto safety through electronic sophistication

There is a great demand throughout the automotive sector for electronic products which are used now in every vehicle. Advanced technology is used to control many in-vehicle systems, such as fuel injection, power control and air-condition­ing. Emerging applications including GPS navigation, real-time vehicle diagnostics and even Internet access are increasingly being offered in an ever-wider range of vehicles, thanks to cheaper circuits and higher yields.

More critically, though, Motorola Angers’ technology lies at the heart of vital in-car safety systems like anti-lock brakes and regulated power steering. Vehicle manu­facturers demand that Motorola Angers’ products meet exacting reliability standards.

The production of these products takes place in Motorola’s European automotive manufacturing center, located in Angers, France, on the banks of the Maine. The plant employs over 400 workers who produce hundreds of thousands of products on its assembly lines each year.

Quality is a permanent preoccupation throughout the whole plant. Product quality is checked at each stage in the assembly process. Motorola Angers carries out a number of tests such as visual in­spections conducted by automated optical inspection machines, x-ray and electrical evaluation. At the end of the line, Motorola Angers confirms that the boards operate in very high and very low temperatures, in humid and salty atmospheres, and when exposed to intense vibrations.

The last stage during which the board can still be corrected easily is the In-Circuit Test (ICT): every component and every circuit must function according to specification, individually and together, and to precise tolerances. If the board fails the test, the fault must be precisely located.

To carry out the ICT, Motorola Angers chose the Keysight 3070 Test System. It delivers superior test coverage, accuracy, repeatability, transportability and speed. “For this highly critical operation, these qualities are essential,” says Frédéric Bouchet, test engineer in charge of ICT testing at the Angers facility.

Speed and accuracy key Keysight 3070 assets

The Keysight 3070 consists of an electronic test system associated with a work station. Each examined product is placed on a specific interface connecting it electrically to the tester. The test is controlled by software adapted to the specifications and functionalities of the product.

The time the ICT equipment takes to test a board is crucial. Because the test system is integrated with the assembly line, it directly affects line throughput. With the Keysight 3070, this time is fast enough not to disturb the line rhythm. “This speed fits exactly our needs,” says Bouchet.

The Keysight 3070 also produces more accurate results, Bouchet continues: “We experience a three per cent NFF (No Find Fault) with the 3070.” Since each rejected board has a direct impact on the assembly line’s productivity and profitability, obtaining the most accurate test result is vital to Motorola Angers’ business.

Fast customization to meet customer demand

Each newly designed circuit board requires an ICT program and fixture (a physical interface, which connect the boards to the 3070). Clearly, the more quickly these tools can be produced, the faster Motorola Angers can bring new boards to production.

The Keysight 3070 accelerates this process by generating the software and fixture software and fixture specification directly from the board designers’ digital blueprints. The fixture specification is sent to the fixture manufacturer, and the programming code is completed by the test team

“No time is wasted,” says Bouchet, “because the software produced by the 3070 is very efficient. It is also possible to develop and debug the software program on our own PCs without interrupting the production process. Without this capability, we would need another tester just for the software.”

The result, he says, is that it takes between five and six weeks to put the new board into production.

Software and fixture hardware can then be quickly installed on other 3070s. “We need only two or three days to qualify another 3070 to conduct tests with the new software and fixture,” says Bouchet. This flexibility is vital to hasten the rollout of a new assembly process, and to switch systems in case of failure.