Customer description The customer is a global manufacturer of semiconductors for wired and wireless communications enabling the delivery of voice, video, data and multimedia in home, office and mobile environments.

Customer Testing Challenges Ensuring product quality prior to market release involved various complications that made testinga challenging issue:

• Lengthy testing process• Low test coverage• Code-intensive test creation and equipment

control• Poor data aggregation • Lack of test standardization

The customer’s product testing process encompasses many multifaceted test scenarios involving different parameters like temperature and voltage. A small team of 10 test engineers performs all tests on 5 independent test stations. Therefore, thorough testing became a time consuming burden.

In order to release the product to the market in a reasonable time frame, only a limited number of products were being tested, with different batches of tests being performed on the different devices. This resulted in relatively low test coverage.

Partial automation has been achieved mostly by using VB Scripts, which required the testing team to have programming skills. The need for programming, as well as the lack of a consistent test-creation method, made it almost impossible to re-use tests. Test modifications were time consuming and required frustrating repeated efforts.

Programming was also required in order to control and communicate with the test equipment.The R&D team developed libraries of drivers. Skilled expensive resources were invested to perform product testing.

Test results from multiple stations were stored locally using log files and Excel sheets. Data aggregation was poorly handled by manually copying and pasting data into Excel files and running various calculations. Results were hard to access and manipulate and there was a permanent risk of results analysis inaccuracy.

Defining the required solutionIn the search for a test automation solution to improve the testing process and product quality, this semiconductor manufacturer’s wish-list included:

• Standardization:• Standard test creation and implementation• Standard equipment interfacing• Unified Application Programming Interfaces (APIs)

• Flexibility, including the ability to easily change test equipment and test scenarios

• Assets sharing capabilities among the testing team, including tests, resources, results and reports

• Relatively high ROI

Overcoming Test Challenges with TestShell Test Automation Framework

After evaluating several third-party test automation solutions that failed to deliver these expectations, the semiconductor company evaluated QualiSystems’ TestShell.

TestShell is an end-to-end test automation software framework compatible for testing virtually any hardware, electronic device, or embedded system. The framework covers the entire testing cycle from start to finish, while providing programming free test authoring, automatic test execution, advanced lab management, and comprehensive test reporting and analysisaptitudes.

Case StudyA semiconductor manufacturer

Using TestShell, this semiconductor manufacturer overcomes its testing challenges.TestShell’s test authoring application allows the testing team to independently create standardized test scenarios at any level of complexity without programming, using a drag-and-drop graphical interface. As a result, test creation is significantly faster.

All test engineers use the same test creation platform, allowing easy test implementation and reuse. Regressions are easily created by combining already-made test scenarios, regardless of who created the test.

A broad array of script languages and software resources is ready-integrated, as are an extensive support of network protocols. The customer fully utilizes existing infrastructure, easily integrates with required test equipment and resources, while all previously developed scripts and interfaces are still used. The R&D team is freed from needing to support the testing team and can reinvest its entire efforts in product development.

The built in integration and code free test development, provides the testing team with the flexibility to replace test equipment, without needing to program scripts, or making significant changes in test scenarios

The testing team independence translates toimproved test process management and efficiency.

The 10 independent test stations are controlled via the same server. TestShell’s central server saves all assets from all stations - test scenarios, test resources, scripts, protocols and so on - to a shared location, allowing all defined users to share assets, eliminate repeated efforts and improve analysis capabilities.

Test execution is completely automated. Test results are viewed in real-time during execution, and are automatically collated to customized user-defined reports. Reports can be filtered according to user-defined attributes and enriched with additional attachments. At the end of the execution, reports from all 10 stations are automatically saved to the central server, and can be exported to any common format for further analysis. Reports that were once created over a period of 2 days are now automatically generated in minutes.

The semiconductor manufacturer chose to upgrade its test analysis capabilities with TestShell’s advanced analysis tool, TestShell InSight. InSight displays test results and trends in real-time via online dashboards and can be accessed from any location by management or any defined user. Advanced query builder enables easy interrogation of the displayed analysis and reports, for comprehensive test data intelligence.

Programming-free test development

Standardized test creation

Hardware and software resource integration

Test assets sharing and easy reuse

Central server for all test assets and results

Comprehensive automatic test reporting and analysis in minutes

TestShell saves the manufacturer time and effort, which directly translates to time-to-market reduction.The company testing team can now perform more tests, on more semiconductors.Test coverage is increased, and more quality products are released to the market.

TestShell answers the customer’s demands and helps it overcome its testing challenges while providing:

Test Creation

Scripts & Other Resources Test Analysis

Test Execution

Test Environment

TestShell Server