Three ATE programmes in Asia-Pacific
Battery, semiconductor and research
These three programmes are worth reading together, because none of them could have been met from a catalogue. Each one moved a different quantity, at a different scale, and each needed the test executive rewritten around the requirement rather than the requirement bent to fit an instrument.
KOMERI — 240-channel BMS and cell test system
Built for KOMERI, a Korean public-private research entity, this was a battery-management-system and cell test system at 240 channels, 5 V at 5 A per channel, with all cells in series reaching 1,200 VDC and 2,000 VDC isolation.
Intepro wrote the software to the customer's requirement — one of three closely related SemTest packages specified by Intepro China — and designed and shipped a custom 8-cell test fixture with full temperature-sensing circuits.
- Channels
- 240
- Per channel
- 5 V at 5 A
- Series string
- 1,200 VDC
- Isolation
- 2,000 VDC
- Fixture
- 8-cell, custom, with temperature sensing
Seoul National University — 1,500 A fuse tester
A fuse test system conducting 1,500 A at 0.8 V. High current at very low voltage is an awkward corner: the interesting behaviour is in the millivolts, and the measurement problem is harder than the sourcing problem.
Custom software was written to the university's specification.
- Test current
- 1,500 A
- Test voltage
- 0.8 V
Nanyang Technological University — intermittent operating life
NTU, which runs a public-private research partnership with Rolls-Royce, uses an Intepro system for IOL — intermittent operating life — testing on IGBTs, MOSFETs and diodes.
The system tests four totem-pole transistors, eight devices in total, at up to 250 A and up to 12 V, run in shorted constant-current mode. Because the point of the test is to drive devices to failure, the heat is generated deliberately and has to go somewhere: a liquid-cooled heatsink and chiller were supplied with the system. An air-cooled fixture variant exists, and the China demo system carries the hardware to run IOL demonstrations.
Designed, tested, built, shipped and commissioned by Intepro, with the SemTest software written to the customer's specification.
- Devices
- 4 totem-pole transistors / 8 devices
- Current
- up to 250 A
- Voltage
- up to 12 V
- Mode
- shorted (constant current)
- Cooling
- liquid-cooled heatsink and chiller
What it shows
All three arrived as a specification rather than a part number, and all three needed the test executive shaped to the requirement. That is the common thread and it is the reason the software matters more than the instruments.