Front end module for automatic test equipment

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9755766-B2
Application number	US-201514946311-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 7, 2015
Priority date	Dec 7, 2015
Publication date	Sep 5, 2017
Grant date	Sep 5, 2017

Abstract

Example automatic test equipment (ATE) includes: a test instrument for outputting test signals to test a device under test (DUT), and for receiving output signals from the DUT, with the test instrument including a front-end module, and with the front-end module including internal circuitry for performing functions relating to the DUT; and external circuitry for performing the functions relative to the DUT via the test instrument, with the external circuitry being external to the front-end module and being shared among multiple front-end modules or channels of the test instrument. The test instrument is configurable to use either (i) the internal circuitry, (ii) the external circuitry, or (iii) a combination of circuits in the internal circuitry and the external circuitry to perform the functions.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. Automatic test equipment (ATE) comprising:
a test instrument for outputting test signals to test a device under test (DUT), and for receiving output signals from the DUT, the test instrument comprising a front-end module, the front-end module comprising:
internal source circuitry to generate the test signals to be provided by the test instrument; and
internal receiver circuitry to receive the output signals;

external source circuitry that is external to the front-end module to generate the test signals to be output by the test instrument; and
external receiver circuitry that is external to the front-end module to receive the output signals;
wherein the test instrument is configurable to use one of (i) the internal source circuitry and the internal receiver circuitry, or (ii) the external source circuitry and the external receiver circuitry.

2. The ATE of claim 1 , wherein at least one of the external source circuitry or the external receiver circuitry is sharable across multiple front-end modules.

3. The ATE of claim 1 , wherein both the external source circuitry and the external receiver circuitry are sharable across multiple front-end modules.

4. The ATE of claim 1 , wherein the internal source circuitry and the internal receiver circuitry are part of an internal transceiver, the external source circuitry having better phase noise performance than the internal source circuitry.

5. The ATE of claim 1 , wherein the internal source circuitry and the internal receiver circuitry are part of an internal transceiver, the external receiver circuitry having better phase noise performance than the internal receiver circuitry.

6. The ATE of claim 1 , wherein the external source circuitry provides better performance than the internal source circuitry with respect to one or more of the following parameters: frequency resolution, phase noise, harmonic distribution, spurious emissions, error vector magnitude, adjacent channel power ratio, modulation bandwidth, two-tone intermodulation, or inband intermodulation.

7. The ATE of claim 1 , wherein the external receiver circuitry provides better performance than the internal receiver circuitry with respect to one or more of the following parameters: frequency resolution, phase noise, harmonic distribution, spurious emissions, error vector magnitude, adjacent channel power ratio, modulation bandwidth, two-tone intermodulation, or inband intermodulation.

8. The ATE of claim 1 , further comprising:
one or more processing devices to configure the test instrument to use either (i) the internal source circuitry and the internal receiver circuitry, or (ii) external source circuitry and external receiver circuitry.

9. The ATE of claim 1 , wherein the external source circuitry comprises a first synthesizer and the internal source circuitry comprises a second synthesizer, the first synthesizer having better performance than the second synthesizer at least with respect to one operational parameter.

10. The ATE of claim 1 , wherein the external receiver circuitry comprises a first receiver and the internal receiver circuitry comprises a second receiver, the first receiver having better performance than the second receiver at least with respect to one operational parameter.

11. The ATE of claim 1 , wherein the test instrument comprises back-end circuitry that is connectable to a device interface board and test programs that are executable to test the DUT, the back-end circuitry and the test programs being usable, without modification to the device interface board, with both (i) the internal source circuitry and the internal receiver circuitry, and (ii) external source circuitry and external receiver circuitry.

12. The ATE of claim 1 , wherein the internal source circuitry and the internal receiver circuitry are used when DUT performance or test program limits do not require a performance level that is above a threshold, and the external source circuitry and external receiver circuitry are used when the DUT performance or test program limits require a performance level that is above the threshold.

13. Automatic test equipment (ATE) comprising:
a test instrument for outputting test signals to test a device under test (DUT), and for receiving output signals from the DUT, the test instrument comprising a front-end module, the front-end module comprising:
internal source circuitry to perform generating the test signals to be output by the test instrument; and
internal receiver circuitry to perform receiving the output signals from the DUT and to pass the output signals to test circuitry;

external source circuitry to perform generating the test signals to be output by the test instrument, the external source circuitry being partly or completely outside the front-end module;
external receiver circuitry to perform receiving the response signals and to pass the output signals to the test circuitry, the external receiver circuitry being partly or completely outside the front-end module; and
one or more processing devices to configure the test instrument to use one of (i) the internal source circuitry and the internal receiver circuitry, or (ii) the external source circuitry and the external receiver circuitry.

14. The ATE of claim 13 , wherein the external source circuitry comprises a first synthesizer or a first modulated synthesizer, and the internal source circuitry comprises a second synthesizer or second modulated synthesizer.

15. The ATE of claim 13 , wherein the external receiver circuitry comprises a first synthesized receiver, and the internal receiver circuitry comprises a second synthesizer and receiver.

16. The ATE of claim 13 , further comprising:
a multiplexer or signal splitter to connect at least one of the external source circuitry or the external receiver circuitry to another test instrument comprising another front end module.

17. The ATE of claim 13 , wherein the test instrument is configured to perform radio frequency tests on the DUT.

18. Automatic test equipment (ATE) comprising:
a test instrument for outputting test signals to test a device under test (DUT), and for receiving output signals from the DUT, the test instrument comprising a front-end module, the front-end module comprising internal circuitry for performing functions relating to the DUT; and
external circuitry for performing the functions relating to the DUT via the test instrument, the external circuitry being external to the front-end module and being shared among multiple front-end modules or channels of the test instrument;
wherein the test instrument is configurable to use one of (i) the internal circuitry, or (ii) the external circuitry to perform the functions.

19. The ATE of claim 18 , wherein the functions comprise sourcing signals corresponding to the test signals.

20. The ATE of claim 18 , wherein the functions comprise receiving signals corresponding to the response signals.

21. The ATE of claim 18 , wherein circuitry inside the front-end module comprises a first synthesizer or first modulated synthesizer and the circuitry outside the front-end module comprises a second synthesizer or second modulated synthesizer, the second synthesizer having better performance than the first synthesizer with respect to one or more operational parameters.

22. The ATE of claim 21 , wherein the one or more operational parameters comprise one of more of the following: phase noise, frequency resolution, harmonic distribution, spurious emissions, error ve

Assignees

• Teradyne Inc

Inventors

• Wadell Brian C
• Rosenthal Daniel

Classifications

• H04B17/29 Primary

  Performance testing · CPC title

• H04B1/1027

  assessing signal quality or detecting noise/interference for the received signal · CPC title

• H04B17/0085

  using test signal generators · CPC title

• G01R31/2839

  using signal generators, power supplies or circuit analysers (G01R31/2879 takes precedence; multimeters G01R15/12, network analysers G01R27/28) · CPC title

• G01R31/2837 Primary

  Characterising or performance testing, e.g. of frequency response (transient response G01R27/28) · CPC title