B U S I N E S S S E R V I C E S

Agilent 3070

In-Circuit Test

Flexible Test:

Your World,

You Shape It

Ascom’s OEM facility in Switzerland faces the classic challenge of howto achieve the highest quality manufacturing and testing of a variety ofcomplex circuit boards at the lowest production cost. In meeting this

challenge, Ascom has turned to Agilent’s innovative, flexibleand extremely cost-effective pay-per-use business model.

Not only does Ascom have full access to the widerange of advanced testing facilities offered by the

Agilent 3070 Series 3 in-circuit test system, but it also enjoys significantly reduced investmentcosts. With pay-per-use, Ascom only pays forthe equipment features the company actuallyuses. This gives Ascom the flexibility andscalability of using high-end test equipment

but with low entry costs. Additionally, pay-per-use simplifies accounting with internal and

external customers.

Agilent Pay-Per-Use Model Slashes

Manufacturing Test Costs for Ascom

To test very complex products, the Agilent 3070 offers all required test procedures, including digital and analogin-circuit testing, functional testing and boundary-scan.

Diversified TechnologyAscom is a diversified technology companyoffering products for financial services,health services, telecommunications, trans-portation and energy industries. With itsheadquarters in Bern, Switzerland, thecompany employs over 10,000 people andhas offices located in its major marketsworldwide. Turnover for the year 2000 wasmore than $1.7 billion—up 5.9 per cent onthe previous year.

Such a wide product portfolio means thatthe Ascom manufacturing plant in Bernneeds to produce many very different prod-ucts: from automated teller machines andpostage stamp franking machines, to ticketmachines and equipment for energy gener-ation and distribution.

While the range of products is diverse, ingeneral, Ascom manufacturing is charac-terized by high product mix and mediumvolume.

This situation leads to special requirementsfor testing procedures. Because the manu-factured products are frequently changingand are very complex, the testing equipmentmust be able to adapt itself to these differ-ent technical requirements. At Ascom, test-ing equipment needs to be able to managea wide variety of tests across a multitude of devices: from analogue and digital com-ponents with thousands of nodes, and fromflash programming to optical inspection orX-Ray test, as well as advanced packageslike chip-scale package or flip-chip.

A Highly Competitive MarketImportantly, the pace of technologicalchange in the highly competitive environ-ment in which Ascom operates demandsthe utmost operational flexibility from testequipment. Cost effectiveness is also criti-cal as the Ascom manufacturing plant notonly needs to guarantee highest qualitystandards, but also deliver economic effi-ciencies comparable to any other plantelsewhere in the world. Besides producingAscom brand products, the Bern facilityalso acts as an OEM manufacturing servicefor customers who compare conditionsworldwide.

Additionally, the manufacturing unit needsto compete with other OEM manufacturingservices throughout the rest of the Ascomgroup. If Bern is not able to deliver world-class quality and cost efficiency, Ascom’sown product managers are free to switchproducts to another facility.

In this fiercely contested market Agilent’spay-per-use model, combined with theworld-leading test facilities offered by theAgilent 3070 Series 3 board test system, isdelivering real competitive advantage toAscom.

Pay-Per-Use—Cost-Effective FlexibilityThe Agilent 3070 Series 3 in-circuit testsystem is the fastest on the market, withdouble the throughput of earlier 3070 sys-tems, and provides superior test coverage,accuracy, repeatability and transportability.For example, it is able to test today's gener-ation of denser, more complex boards withthe Agilent Dynamic Test Access Suite forautomatic, probe-free coverage and diag-nostics. These tools provide easy-to-usetest development environments in which to solve the toughest PCBA test problemscaused by limited test probe access, whileAgilent's high-speed flash programmingsolution allows fast on-board programming.

The advanced capabilities of the 3070Series 3 are only matched by the cost effec-tiveness of Agilent’s pay-per-use businessmodel. This enables customers to purchasehigh-end test equipment at a significantlyreduced investment cost comparable tothat of low-end equipment.

The key to pay-per-use is the Agilent testcredit button that unlocks the system’s testcapabilities. The button works like a tele-phone calling card: short distance callscost less than a long distance one andtherefore use up fewer ‘units’. Test creditbuttons are consumed in the same way.Running a simple test on a small boarduses credits at a low rate, while a full com-binational test uses credits at a faster rate.

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The engineers at Ascomdevelop, test and manu-facture a wide variety ofboards.

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Sharing Risk with Customers“For many of our customers, their boardtest needs are unpredictable but with pay-per-use we are able to share the investmentrisk of our customers,” comments MartinHertler, a sales representative with Agilentin Germany. “With the Agilent 3070 Series 3, customers avoid the danger ofselecting a tester that proves to be inade-quate when new technology is introduced,or of paying for test capabilities that arenot really needed at a given point in time.”

The pay-per-use model is also profitable forsmaller companies that produce complexelectronic products. First-class testingequipment that meets all requirements fortesting options, high node-count, precision,reliability, throughput and analysis is neededfor their high-quality boards and devices.But the production volume often makes itdifficult for smaller companies to amortizethis class of equipment. In these casespay-per-use is the ideal solution. It enablescompanies to use the full performance of ahigh-end in-circuit testing machine withlow entry costs while Agilent absorbs partof the investment risk to the customer.

This kind of risk sharing is much appreciat-ed by Ascom as Thomas Spring, TestEngineering Manager at the Bern plantexplains: “Pay-per-use offers us therequired flexibility and scalability we needwith our testing equipment. We canreduce our capital lockup because Agilentshares with us the risk of the varying uti-lization of our testing equipment.”

Aligning Testing with Product LifecycleFor example, if the Agilent 3070 is used in a production process, some of the moresophisticated testing functions are onlyoccasionally used. On the other hand, themore basic testing equipment that is bettersuited for a production environment wouldnot normally have the advanced featuressuch as boundary-scan and flash program-ming that are needed at the developmentstage. High-end equipment that can't befully utilized throughout the product lifecycleis, largely, ‘dead money’ for the company.

But with pay-per-use, Ascom has availableall the advanced functionality of a high-endmachine—but at a comparable low invest-ment cost and with lower ongoing costs inaddition.

The flexibility of lower ongoing operationalcosts also gives Ascom the option to usehigh-end equipment in the prototyping andpre-series product development stages. In this way Ascom gathers data for futureproduction purposes and the company haseven developed a universal adaptor to con-nect different kinds of prototypes to AgilentSeries 3 test equipment.

Another benefit of the pay-per-use model is simplified accounting with customers.“Pay-per-use makes the real costs of pro-duction testing more transparent to us. It is now much easier to assign the cost ofproduct tests to our different customers,”says Thomas Spring.

A world-leading advanced board tester,with unrivaled functionality and flexiblepricing that reduces the cost of ownershipand minimizes risk is a powerful combina-tion. Little wonder then that pay-per-usehas become the preferred business modelfor test equipment at Ascom, and thattoday Agilent is the preferred supplier.

Ascom has used Agilent manufacturingtest equipment since 1995 and the share of Agilent equipment is still growing. AsThomas Spring observes: “Today 80 percent of our new devices are tested usingAgilent equipment which—together withthe pay-per-use model—makes an essen-tial contribution to the economic successof those applications.”

With the pay-per-usemodel, Ascom only pays fortest features when they areactually necessary.

www.agilent.com/go/manufacturing

United StatesAgilent Technologies Test and Measurement Call CenterP.O. Box 4026Englewood, CO 80155-4026 Tel: 1 800 447 8378

CanadaAgilent Technologies Canada Inc.5150 Spectrum WayMississauga, Ontario L4W 5G1Tel: 1 800 447 8378Fax: 1 905 282 6300

EuropeAgilent TechnologiesEuropean Marketing OrganisationP.O. Box 9991180 AZ AmstelveenThe NetherlandsTel: +31 20 547 2200Fax: +31 20 547 2290

JapanAgilent Technologies Japan Ltd.Measurement Assistance Center9-1, Takakura-Cho, Hachioji-Shi,Tokyo 192-8510, JapanToll free: 0120 802 363Tel: (81) 426 56 7498Fax: (81) 426 60 7532

Latin AmericaAgilent TechnologiesLatin American Region Headquarters5200 Blue Lagoon Drive, Suite #950Miami, Florida 33126 U.S.A.Tel: 011 52 3 134 5841Fax: (305) 267 4286

Australia/New ZealandAgilent Technologies Australia Pty Ltd 347 Burwood HighwayForest Hill, Victoria 3131Tel: (65) 215 8370 Fax: (65) 271 1365

Asia PacificAgilent Technologies Singapore (Sales) Pte. Ltd.438 Alexandra Road, #08-00 Alexandra PointSingapore 119958Toll-free: 1 800 375 8100Tel: (65) 215 8370 Fax: (65) 271 1365

Data is subject to change without notice.

Copyright © 2001Agilent TechnologiesPrinted in USA September 7, 20015988-4010EN

For more information about Agilent Technologies products and solutions in electronics manufacturing, visit our website:http://www.agilent.com/go/manufacturing. To learn aboutother Agilent test and measurement products, applications andservices, or for a current sales office listing, visit our website:http://www.agilent.com/find/tmdir. You can also contactone of the following centers and ask for a test and measurementsales representative.

The Agilent 3070 In-Circuit Test (ICT) System is flexibletest on a global scale. Its four key attributes—agile testtechnology, worldwide business services, constant innova-tion and global presence—make the 3070 a perfect fit forelectronics manufacturing. No other platform provides theflexibility required to thrive and survive in a chaotic world.