R&S®TSVP Test system versatile platform

The trend is towards economical platforms suitable for industry

There is a heightened interest in testing organizations to configure the required functions in most compact units as versatile as possible so that current and future requirements can be covered without any need for large additional investments. Moreover, constantly reduced product development times call for powerful, easy-to-operate and standardized software components which can be integrated as reusable modules in a multitude of applications. The R&S®TSVP is more than a mass production tester. Test engineers can use the instrument throughout the entire development phase, from engineering validation tests (EVT), design validation tests (DVT) and production validation tests (PVT) to mass production (MP). Current development and production lines for wireless devices must provide an optimum combination of flexibility, performance and capacity utilization. As the leading supplier of T&M equipment for all stages in the development and manufacturing of a brought bunch of applications, Rohde & Schwarz meets these stringent requirements with the R&S®TSVP.

Compact and expandable System approach

• State of the art R&S®TSVP models with up to 18 module slots.
• Compact 19-inch 4 height units rackmount enclosure.
• Outstanding scalability for high-pin-count and high-current ATE applications with up to 990 channels in one chassis and 2430 channels by extending with a second chassis.
• Versatile control concept, either by a powerful embedded computer or alternatively by a remote-control interface together with an external industrial PC (IPC).
• Sophisticated analog measurement bus for internal measurement signal routing dynamically under program control.
• Floating analog and digital instrumentation ensure reliable high signal quality and prevents from humming loops.
• Rear-I/O concept allows feed in external signals from the rear through the instrumentation forward to the front connectors.
• Mass interconnect interface solution without derating of the instrument specifications typically caused by otherwise needed signal wiring.
• In-system self-test and calibration supports high degree of utilization typically required within 24/7 factories.

Powerful modules portfolio

• Embedded computer or remote control interface
• Multimeter and in-circuit test extension modules.
• Signal routing modules from 90 channel 1 A up to 4 channel 50 A with integrated current measurement features.
• Digital I/O modules, from 10 channels up 64 channels, statically and dynamically up to 200 MS/s and 2 Msamples on-board memory.
• Analog waveform generation (floating) from 2 channels up to 16 channels, high level with ±20 V / up to 250 mA or ±27 V / up to 100 mA.
• Analog waveform acquisition from 8 channel up to 16 channels in parallel, high level with up to ±27 V or up to ±120 V.
• Power supply with 2 channels ±50 V / ±3 A / 50 W / 10 kS/s (floating)

Module design

The form factor of the R&S®TSVP modules reflects the consistent product philosophy of meeting cross-section requirements in electronics production. Each instrument allows the primary switching of incoming signals via the front connector plus free access to the internal analog measurement bus. If only a few signals need to be multiplexed for testing a DUT, the multiplexer on the measurement module is often sufficient. If, however, a large number of channels needs to be handled, multiplexing is carried out via the analog measurement bus and switch matrix modules. As a result, module connection is flexible, which is high valued in practice and fixture cabling for these dedicated measurement tasks is simplified. The rear-I/O measurement signal routing concept allows connecting external instrumentation to feed in or out signals from the rear through switching modules forward to the front connectors and at least to the device under test (DUT). Furthermore the signals from the external instrumentation gets access to the R&S analog measurement bus and can be routed system internally to other R&S instruments for further measurement tasks.

Internal signal routing concept

As an extension for industrial use in typical automatic test equipment (ATE) environments, an additional backplane for the analog measurement bus has been integrated; it can be utilized for flexible test signal routing in the chassis between the modules without requiring any additional external cables. The signal routing of partially high-impedance analog signals or signals with very small levels must be kept at a physical distance from the “digital data highway”, the PCI bus. The same applies to higher voltages. For this purpose, the format of the modules was expanded by an interface for the analog measurement bus. During the measurements the cross-connection of the signals from module to module is generated temporarily via coupling relays to the analog measurement bus dynamically under program control.

• The analog measurement bus offers short and high-quality signal routing in-between the measurement modules inside the chassis without the needing of external wiring.
• Eight lines of the system-wide analog measurement bus, each with 120 V / 1A max., are available at the most of the peripheral slots. They are used for dynamically interconnect DUT signals routed via switching modules and various measurement or stimulus modules that have access to the analog measurement bus.
• Reduced interferences and ensured high-reproducible measurements inherent by the given concept.
• The analog bus is located directly above the front connector area where space is provided for on-board signal conditioning and signal routing using coupling relays for the analog bus.
• 3rd party modules can also benefit from this concept system internally by using additional instrument lines and a dedicated connector located at the analog bus backplane.

High-current switching and measurement modules

• Most of the available power switching modules are specified as a combination of switching paths for sense- and force-signals.
• Free selection of the ampacity of the switching paths by either 12x 16 A or 8x 30 A or 4x 50 A, always combined with the appropriate amount of 2 A sense-paths.
• All switching paths are equipped either with a shunt-resistor or a current to voltage transducer, depending on the ampacity of the force-signal path. They have access to the local and to the global R&S analog measurement bus thanks to the bus coupling relays. The switching paths are calibrated and the correction values can be read from the remanent memory of each module.
• Current measurement are possible within 20 ranges from nA up to 50 A with high accuracy and without any signal interruption.
• The achievable current measurement accuracy is typically ±1 % from the value and +0.2 % from the range.
• In the range below 1 A with a direct current measurement with R&S®TS-PSAM analog source and measurement by selecting the appropriate current range.
• Above 1 A indirectly by a voltage measurement either by measuring the voltage drop over the shunt-resistor or by measuring the output voltage of the current to voltage transducer.

unique Mass interconnect interface solution

• The interface between the test platform and the Unit Under Test (UUT) is one of the most important parts of each test system in respect to reliability, flexibility and modularity.
• The well adapted pull-thru mass interconnection interface solution direct flanged to the front of the R&S®TSVP chassis ensures easy access to the instrumentation for service and maintenance.
• No derating of instruments technical data due to direct connection of the signal modules to the front connectors of the instrumentation without additional internal wiring.
• High scalability by supporting of three product variants with G20, G20x and G40x from 20 slots up to 40 slots + 10 eXtension slots.
• Allows custom made and cost optimized configurations for all kind of applications from DC over high-power to RF.

Comprehensive software and tools

For convenient test program development, a comprehensive library is available, referred to as a Generic Test Software Library (R&S®GTSL); it features ready to go and fully tested software modules for functional tests, based on the Interchangeable Virtual Instruments (IVI) industrial standard. It includes the entire resource management and the configuration of the modules used in the system, DUT switching as well as all measurement and stimulus functions of the R&S modules. The R&S®GTSL allows fast and reliable implementation of test cases and their adaption to changing requirements. Instrument Soft Panels allowing a quick start with operation of a R&S®TSVP and easy configuration of each individual module while debugging and evaluation tasks. R&S®GTSL Debug Driver Server and Debug Panels are very helpful while implementation and troubleshooting tasks and can be performed in parallel with a running test application respectively a test executive sequencing solution. The panels are showing the current status of the most R&S modules while runtime. The Signal Routing Library as a part of the R&S®GTSL as an outstanding example of the high-level library makes it possible to set up complex switched connections by means of switching commands. Switched connections can be automatically routed by the analog measurement bus, i.e. the software searches for free analog measurement bus lines and automatically switches the relays in the switching path based on easily readable logical names. Extensive switched connections can also be saved under an application-specific name and then called in the test program. As an extraordinary feature, the signal routing library supports multi-panel and parallel testing by a sophisticated bench concept.