2007 PASSED.  Human frailty necessitates mistakes.  It is the mandate of test engineering to find and eliminate these mistakes, defects, failures, faults, omissions, flaws, etc. before it creates harm.  Our profession was created to serve this simple need.  Often in an environment where so many try to hide, forgive or forget problems, we are tasked with exposing them.  The bearers of bad news are on occasion treated unkindly, but we know we are here to help and we take pride in our work.  Averting disastrous results of faulty electronics does not make the news, so who knows what we have accomplished?  We do, and the many links to Announcements, Application Notes, Books, Case Studies, Courses, Guidelines, Humor, Interviews, Articles, Product Releases, Reports, Software, Standards, Web Postings, and White Papers in this issue demonstrates that as a profession, we have been working hard to do our job better.  While the linked list we provide here is long, it is quite comprehensive.  You can read through the titles and in just a few minutes identify the dozen or so links that are of interest to you.  In those few minutes, you will be able to read the Best Test news of 2007.

With 2008 UNDER TEST, we as a profession need to work much harder just to achieve the same success we achieved in 2007.  The circuits under test in 2008 are the most complex we have yet seen and 2007’s tools and solutions are not going to suffice for many of them.  So we need to be ever more vigilant and clever.  As Moore’s Law doubles circuit complexity every 18 months, Murphy’s Law doubles the number of things that can go wrong in the same span of time.  Actually it is worst than that, because many if not most of the new faults are untestable with today’s test solutions. 

This leads us to my favorite subject – Design for Testability (DFT).  In 2008 we will work on resolving testability issues. (I know you heard that before.)  DFT is like good weather.  We all support it, but have resigned ourselves that there is not much we can do to make it happen.  Perhaps the analogy exaggerates, but while DFT is a subject of many papers, and a number of fine tools have been developed to make circuits more testable, it is not a required design criterion.  Only the best electronics designers practice it, and only in a small number of cases.  In 2008 things will start to change.  I base this prediction on the hope I have for a group of testability professionals who have gotten together to form TMAG (Testability Management Action Group). Their mission is to bring the issue of DFT to Upper Management and to gain their support by demonstrating to managers that testability and DFT make economic sense.  If you are a test professional, you can join this group and help with the work of its committees.  See www.BestTest.com/TMAG/.  The group’s first meeting was held in December 2007 through personal and WebEx attendance from anywhere in the world.  You can attend meetings at no cost from any point in the world.

There will be, no doubt, other important progress in the world of test in 2008.  RF, display technology, memory technology, high-speed data transmission, signal integrity, reliability, lead free soldering, EMC regulations, LXI, XTML, MEMS, and other acronyms and terms will inhabit much of the test profession.  Test professionals will make more accurate equipment that will cost less and will be easier to use. 

We, at BestTest, will be here to report to you by email what the test profession is doing.  Through the wonderful world of the Internet we can bring you ALL the news in TEST, because we believe the best test is what you choose as the best and you can’t choose the best unless you also see the rest.  We will, however, change one thing.  Instead of publishing an issue of The BestTest Newsletter twice each month, we will publish it only on the 16^th of each month.

We would like to remind you, that BestTest is a test community web site.  While being a member of this community is FREE, it is not without responsibility.  The information comes from test professionals who contribute the information by posting information to the various knowledge bases, and we ask you to post some you self.

      Test Publication,  Test Vendors, Test Products & Services, Test Events, Test Dictionary

Select to search a directory.  After the second or third search you will be prompted to either log in, or if you haven’t done so yet, to register.  After this process you will be able to post.  Please be a good BestTest citizen and contribute as others contribute so we can share our test knowledge.  Also, let others in your organization know about BestTest.com.

Finally, I would like to remind you that BestTest is fully developed and maintained by A.T.E. Solutions, Inc., the leading test, ATE and testability consulting and educational firm.  We invite you to visit the schedule of upcoming courses we teach.  We hope to see you at one of them – or ask us to bring the course to your facility.  Also, remember that if it has to do with test and you want the best solution, we may be able to help.  If we can’t we probably can tell you who can.  Feel free to email me at LouisUngar@ieee.org and I promise you an answer.

Happy New Year
BestTest.com 
A.T.E. (Advanced Test Engineering) Solutions, Inc.
Louis Y. Ungar