Parallel voltage measurements in functional test of car ECUs

Nowadays, automobiles are becoming more complex. Fortunately for the consumer, car makers are striving to increase value to attract and convince customers. This in turn increases the need for more electronics in a car to provide safety, comfort and convenience to the buyers. It is not surprising that the increased electronic content and higher complexity for them to work as a system is presenting more cost-of-test challenges to the electronics manufacturers. One obvious challenge is maximizing throughput which in the context of this application note, would refer to test times per unit.

Another major challenge is to have the best test coverage in order to ensure the system-in-car will never be compromised. The ideal goal is to have the best test coverage with the fastest test times and lowest system costs. What may now be obvious is that conventional functional test method usually force test times and test coverage both to be mutually exclusive. Similarly, each of the components may be mutually exclusive to system costs, making the ideal goal seem impossible with conventional test methods and hardware.

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Originally published by Agilent Technologies Inc. at www.agilent.com as "Implementing Parallel Voltage Measurements in Functional Test of Automotive ECUs".