Short locator shortens the route to solve the problem

Analogue, Mixed Signal, LSI

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16 Feb 2000 Analogue, Mixed Signal, LSI

Jeroen Dubbelman

A Boksburg-based manufacturer and supplier of telecommunication equipment uses a Polar Toneohm 950 from Spescom MeasureGraph to locate shorts on PCBs.

Spescom Product Specialist Jeroen Dubbelman says the Toneohm 950 makes it much easier for the company to locate shorts. He says lightning causes most of its shorts. "A significant percentage of electronics manufacturing and in-service defects are caused by PCB short-circuits or faulty devices loading the system. Automatic test equipment or conventional fault detection techniques can be used to diagnose the presence of shorts but not their physical location. The Toneohm 950 does just that."

Dubbelman says the Toneohm 950 is the ideal tool for the electronics production environment. Able to quickly and accurate locate shorts on both bare and loaded PCBs, the 950 provides a very cost-effective means of minimising repair and rework of faulty PCBs that have been identified by pass/fail testing on an ATE system."

Dubbelman says that in recent years, shorts location has become more difficult due to the introduction of multilayer boards, bus-structured circuits, densely-packed components including surface-mount, fine-line tracks and power and earth planes. "The Toneohm 950 represents the definitive solution to all these problems. Employing innovative vectored plane stimulus (VPS) techniques, the instrument provides fast and accurate guidance to the origin of PCB shorts. The ground and power planes of multilayer PCBs make it impossible for conventional test tools to accurately locate the origin of short-circuits. Polar's VPS uses a combination of current injection and field sensing techniques to overcome these problems, enabling you to rapidly home in on the precise fault area of a board without removing components or applying power."

He concludes: "The Toneohm 950 is very successful in the repair industry but it really shines in the manufacturing field."

For further information, contact Jeroen Dubbelman, Spescom MeasureGraph, (011) 266 1500.

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Analogue, Mixed Signal, LSI

Short locator shortens the route to solve the problem

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