Blue Chip Technology Test House to Introduce wide-spread Mil/Aero and Test and Measurement Services at Southern Manufacturing Show, Farnborough, Hampshire, February 11th-12th, Booth A78

Blue Technology

Where we are
Blue Technology started trading in January 2002 and has grown steadily. We are located in the Thames Valley, Reading, with excellent access to the motorway networks including the M4, M3 M40 and M25. We also have excellent access to local airports such as Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted.

Who we are
We have a team of 6 very experience programmers who between them have more than 150 man years experience in a wide variety of Automatic test system, functional test, Digital simulation and JTAG. The team have all previously worked with the big names in ATE. We have a further 4 personnel supporting the day to day operations of the business.

What we do
Blue Technology works with a variety of customers in different ways. Some of our customers' partner with us as there outsourced ICT department Blue Technology provides a variety of services associated with test in electronics manufacturing. These range from partnering major companies providing test services from design to manufacturing, to low volume testing of customer product. Additionally we support a variety of other manufactures including contract manufactures delivering complete ICT turn solutions synchronised with the start of production runs. Depending on customer requirements we can adapt to their preferred method of business. The variety of our customers gives Blue Technology a wide selection of test challenges which in turn increase our experience and knowledge across a range of products and technologies.

Blue Technology has been a Teradyne TSN member since late 2002. This enables Blue Technology to keep update with the latest developments and software fixes. It also provides a valuable resource in resolving various system and test issues when they arise.

The solutions we deliver are varied and wide ranging although the majority are medium to large designs requiring double sided fixtures with occasional dual level operation for functional testing. We have seen an increasing number of products requiring double sided fixtures where today more than half of our projects require double sided fixturing. Our solutions cover In-Circuit through to Flash programming, integrate custom programming to dual level functional testing.

We have a number of unique solutions specifically developed for customers. We have successfully integrated a number of dedicated programmers into TS12x test systems for programming devices such as Actel APA600, Silicon Devices C8051, Altera EP1S25 and Texas TMS320 devices. We have successfully delivered other In System programming solutions where devices use the JTAG or other digital pins as the mechanism for configuring devices. If there is a device which is not already available on the TS12x we can probably develop the solution.

Our solutions use unique techniques and processes to produce an In-Circuit test program which we understand are more stable and faster than those supplied by others. This benefits the customer with accurate diagnoses of faults and minimum test times. We have recently delivered a high volume solution using 9 manufacturing lines where the test time was initially 5 times faster than our competitors. Needless to say the competitor quickly addressed to be able to compete. As result of our faster test times the customer needed to slow down the rate of test to match the line. This was achieved by enabling the integrated Flash programming increasing the test time to match the line beat rate.

We have extensive experience of using the Teradyne Deep Serial Memory (DSM) card for a variety of purpose. The DSM is most often used when the Flash memory of product requires programming during manufacture. We are able to integrate this with customised data using external data retrieved form SQL databases. An example of such a data load is programming the serial number and MAC address into the Flash for the product. We also have extensive experience in data manipulation before writing to memory covering, Endian swapping, byte swapping, nibble swapping, hex to ASCII conversion and ASCII to binary conversion to name a few.

We are able to offer other unique uses of the DSM such as parallel programming of multiple devices whether on a panel of boards or devices used on 32 and 64 bits busses. These solutions require advanced programming of the DSM and test code to deliver the parallel programming.

Our extensive experience with Flash programming has enabled us to develop programming solution which program Flash at or very near to product system speeds. This can only be done using the DSM, where the data is in a silicon environment and using the accelerated programming functions of Flash devices.

Our Resource
We have a team of 6 very experience programmers who between them have more than 150 man years experience in a wide variety of Automatic test system, functional test, Digital simulation and JTAG. The team have all previously worked with the big names in ATE. We have a further 4 personnel supporting the day to day operations of the business.

We have invested in our business and own fully licensed Teradyne TS124 Ultra pin test system and a GR2287 In-Circuit test system. This enables us to debug our customers test solutions off site without impacting on their test resource. This also means that we deliver solutions that work first time on the customer system. The systems are well resourced with the TS124 having 2048 pins, 11 power supplies, 256Meg DSM, SFTM, ICA with HV option and AFTM. The 2287 has 3584 pins, 11 power supplies, 16Meg DSM, ICA and AFTM. Both machines are fully licensed.

One of the key benefits of the TS124 investment is that the system provides back drive reporting. This is run on all jobs before delivery to ensure the absolute minimum, if any, back driving is occurring. Using our tools and process together with the Teradyne ATG software our test programs do not drive any net above the safe limits recommended by U.K. Ministry of Defence, Interim Defence Standard 00-53/3.

Blue Technology has invested in a JTAG Technologies development system with a JT3717 PCI data Blaster and quad port interface. The system is fully licensed for all options enabling a wide variety of solutions to be developed and delivered. We have successfully developed and delivered a number of JTAG bench solutions including solutions which load Flash memory via the JTAG port. We have successfully developed JTAG test vectors for a product using the JTAG Technologies platform and ported these to the TS124. The JTAG vectors have then been integrated into the TS124 test program and run with and without Symphony test software.

The programming team are resourced with high end laptops necessary to run the offline Teradyne and other software tools use. The software on the laptops is all fully licensed including the Teradyne software.

Blue Technology is situated in the same build as the well known quality fixture vendor, Elite Interfaces. This provides Blue Technology with timely delivery and rapid response to our requirements. Where there is a change in plan this can readily be accommodated without impacting our delivery. This provides our customers with fixtures which work first time when delivered to them. As a result of this close proximity we have jointly developed unique fixture solutions for various situations. An example of this is testing a product through the connector on the end of flexi PCBs. The connector on one flexi had gold fingers on a 20 thou pitch where we used staggered 40 thou test probes to contact the connector.

Blue Technology provides a low volume testing service for customers not yet in a position to purchase a test system of there own. The customer product is tested by our personnel on the TS124 and boards returned for the next stage or repair. The boards which fail are diagnosed prior to shipping assisting the customer in correcting issues on the boards. These are then