BOSTON, MA -- September 16, 1996 -- Teradyne introduced the M910, the newest member of its highly successful M900 Family of Digital Test Subsystems, today at Autotestcon '96 in Dayton, Ohio. M900-Family subsystems have been selected for use in the CASS, CTS, GETS, and IFTE CEE programs for the U.S. Department of Defense.

The M910 is a compact, light-weight, power-efficient C-size VXI instrument. With an industry-standard VXIplug&play Windows NT framework software driver and hard-ware that is fully compliant with VXI-C interface standards, the M910 is easily integrated with other VXI-based instruments in automatic test systems (ATS) and specialized test equipment (STE) for large defense and avionics programs.

The M910's fifth-generation digital test architecture represents a 15-year evolution of Teradyne's industry-leading L300-Family Test Systems. Taking full advantage of VXI interface standards and advanced packaging techniques, the M910 provides more digital test capability with greater cost efficiency and higher reliability than has ever been available in a VXI-C instrument. The M910 accurately emulates complex test signals and reliably delivers tests to a unit-under-test (UUT), significantly reducing the time and effort required to develop or rehost, integrate, and debug test programs. The M910 can use the VXI trigger bus or dedicated connections for high-accuracy triggering to support mixed-signal testing at high speeds.

The M910 is self-contained and requires no external power or support circuitry outside of the VXI backplane for easy integration into larger test systems. Configurable with any VXIplug&play- compliant slot 0 controller, the M910 consists of one Central Resource Board (CRB) and up to 11 channel cards containing test electronics. The CRB supplies system-wide clock generation, channel deskewing to the interface test adapter to maintain timing accuracy, and 25 MHz guided-probe electronics for fault diagnosis.

High-fault-coverage functional tests

All other signal control functions are distributed on the channel cards, each of which provides 64 25 MHz bidirectional test channels. In this distributed-resource architecture, the M910 supplies the capabilities required for developing high-fault-coverage functional tests:

• ±10 ns timing accuracy
• 2 ns edge placement resolution
• Per-pin timing control
• Level selection per 8 pins
• 5 data formats selectable per pin

With 32K of pattern memory per channel, the M910 can handle long pattern sequences and capture complete pass/fail data for every pattern in a single pass, ensuring efficient generation of high-resolution fault-dictionary diagnostics. Channels cards can be plugged into any contiguous backplane slots, providing up to 704 high-performance test channels in a single C-size chassis.

The M910's VXIplug&play Windows NT driver provides a graphical soft front panel for "benchtop" access and programming, and a programmatic interface to all Application Development Environments (ADEs) supported in the Windows NT Framework as well as the TYX PAWS ATLAS ADE. Windows NT Framework ADEs include:

• National Instruments LabView
• National Instruments LabWindows CVI
• Microsoft Visual Basic
• Microsoft Visual C++
• HP VEE (Visual Engineering Environment)
• Borland Turbo C++

Developed for ATS and STE integrators, the M910 is a cost-effective commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) alternative to custom-engineered solutions, and a modular alternative to conventional digital word generators. Complete M910 VXI Digital Test Subsystems are burned-in and tested by Teradyne to ensure plug-and-play installation by system integrators.

Teradyne, Inc. is the leading supplier of automatic test equipment (ATE) to manufacturers of electronics worldwide. The company's Assembly Test Boston division is a major supplier of COTS functional board test systems and software for military test.