Improving Product Reliability and Software Quality, 2nd Edition

Foreword First Edition

In my 26 years at Teradyne, I have seen the automated test industry emerge from its infancy and grow into a multibillion‐dollar industry. During that period, Teradyne evolved into the world's leading supplier of automated test equipment (ATE) for testing semiconductors, circuit boards, modules, voice, and broadband telephone networks. As our business grew, the technology necessary to design ATE became increasingly complex, often requiring leading‐edge electronics to meet customer performance needs. Our designs have pushed the envelope, demanding advancements in nearly every technological area including process capability, component density, cooling technology, ASIC complexity, and analog/digital signal accuracy.

Our customers, too, insist on the highest performance systems possible to test their products. But performance alone does not provide the product differentiation that wins sales. Customers also demand incomparable reliability. Revenue lost when an ATE system goes down can be staggering, often in the area of tens of thousands of dollars per hour. Furthermore, because of design complexity and system cost, the warranty cost to maintain these systems is increasing. Low reliability severely impacts the bottom line and impedes the ability to gain and hold market share.

To improve product reliability, changes had to be made to the reliability process. We learned that the process needed to be proactive. It had to start early in the product concept stage ...