Abstract or Demonstration Description: Achieving higher testing speeds, at low cost, with great precision is often taken for granted, since it is demanded by the well-known industry “roadmaps,” originally stemming from Moore’s “law,” and later from extrapolations of it. In reality, it takes years of dedicated innovative engineering to remain on-track with those predictions. In this presentation we look at the historical development of Automated Test Equipment (ATE), as it progressed from 10s of Megahertz to 10s of Gigahertz and above. Today’s testing requirements (in 2023) extend to 100 Gb/s per signal, and in optical systems to “800G.” We extend earlier predictions of 100 Gb/s ATE (c. 2020) to 1 Tb/s by 2030. We briefly describe our own efforts and plans for meeting this target. At the first “Vision ATE 2020” (in 2007) we suggested that ATE speeds would increase to 100Gbps by about the year 2020 [1]. Since 2007, increases in commercial ATE speeds have generally remained on-track with the prediction, even while managing test costs. In 2012 we updated the prediction and gave further examples of prototype test system developments of our own that targeted test requirements of several tens of Gigahertz [2-5].
[1] D.C. Keezer, “Scaling Trends and Directions for High-Performance ATE,” Vision ATE 2020, (2007). [2] D.C. Keezer, et al, “Recent Advances on the Road to 100 Gbps ATE,” Test Vision 2020, (2012). [3] D.C. Keezer, et al, “Multi-Gigahertz Arbitrary Timing Generator and Data pattern Serializer/Formatter,” Intl. Test Conf. (ITC), (2011). [4] C.E. Gray, et al, “Burst-Mode Transmission and Data Recovery for Multi-GHz Optical Packet Switching Network Testing,” Asian Test Symposium (ATS), (2011). [5] D.C. Keezer, et al, “Practical Methods for Extending ATE to 40 and 50 Gbps,” Intl. Test Conf. (2013). [6] D.C. Keezer, D. Minier, “Enhanced Jitter Reduction for Multi-GHz ATE,” Intl. Test Conf. (ITC), (2022).