Adv Antest Corporation

Jesse Hobbs

Alan S Krech, Jr

Xinguo Zhang

Darrin Paul Albers

Ze'ev Raz

Donald Organ

Yi Liu

Kazuya Aramaki

Shigeo Chiyoda

Jeffrey F Stone

A method for monitoring communications between a device under test (DUT) and an automated test equipment (ATE) is disclosed. The method comprises programming an interface core and a protocol analyzer module onto a programmable logic device, wherein the programmable logic device is controlled by a system controller and is operable to generate commands and data to test a DUT, wherein the interface core is operable to generate signals to communicate with the DUT using a protocol associated with the DUT. The method also comprises monitoring data and command traffic associated with the protocol in the interface core using the protocol analyzer module and storing results associated with the monitoring in a memory comprised within the protocol analyzer module. The method finally comprises transmitting the results upon request to an application program associated with the protocol analyzer module executing on the system controller.

Integrated protocol analyzer configured within automated test equipment (ate) hardware

Embodiments of the present invention utilize a dual buffer size threshold system for raising interrupts that allows DUT testing systems to perform real-time buffer memory allocation procedures in an on demand basis. Using dual interrupt threshold systems in the manner described by embodiments of the present invention, DUT testing systems can reduce the need to decide on a single buffer size threshold when testing a set of DUTs that separately provide different amounts of fail data relative to each other. As such, embodiments of the present invention can minimize the overhead processing spent on interrupt handling while also reducing the amount wait time needed for the data processing module to process fail data for each DUT. Thus, embodiments of the present invention can increase the use of tester resources more efficiently while decrease the amount of time a tester system spends collecting and/or analyzing fail data for a set of DUTs during a testing session.

Method and system for advanced fail data transfer mechanisms

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Jesse Hobbs