Are All My Test Sets Saying The Same Thing? Checking the Consistency of Several Mutiparameters Measuring Equipments

To evaluate the quality and reliability of electronic and optical devices, we depend on sophisticated test equipments. For example, high performance integrated circuits (HPICs) are evaluated for their long-term reliability by being subjected to a series of mechanical and electrical stresses intersped with electrical tests. Devices that exhibit more than a very small drift from one electrical test to the next are declared "potentially unreliable" and are removed form the population. Thus, the yield of HPICs is affected by our ability to measure consistently the many characteristics of these components. To give an order of magnitude, we measure about one hundred and twenty electrical characteristics on a HPIC.