Abstract:
An automated monitoring and notification system for use with a testing arrangement is able to identify “potentially faulty test sockets”. The system uses a set of pre-existing data contained in a manufacturing database regarding the number of device failures for each socket. A threshold number of consecutive device failures is used to flag a particular test socket as “suspect”. Another database, containing historical “failure” data for the test sockets is then queried upon identification of each “suspect”. When the number of “failures” for a “suspect” exceeds a predetermined threshold, the socket is identified as “potentially faulty” and an alarm is sent to the system user.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     The present invention relates to an automated test position monitoring and notification system and, more particularly, to a monitoring system capable of continuously analyzing thousands of “test sockets” and notifying a system user of failures associated with the sockets. 
     In the manufacture of various devices, for example, electrical or optoelectronic devices, a variety of tests are performed to assess the operability of the devices. At times, multiple devices may be tested simultaneously, with a number of different test points accessed on each device. In such a situation, the multiple devices may be held in a single test fixture (each device held within a separate socket), with a set of test probes used to contact each separate device. At times, one or more sockets within the test fixture may fail the failure indicated by test results that are out of a “normal” expected range. Such a result may also occur from a malfunctioning device. Therefore, it is often difficult to ascertain the source of the failure between the test socket and the device itself. The ability to find the source of such a failure in “real time” becomes essentially impossible when thousands of devices are being tested simultaneously. As a result, “good” devices may be scrapped as “failures” when being tested in a malfunctioning socket. 
     At this time, manually recovered data associated with various test sockets may be used to determine the site of “failed” sockets. However, by the time this data is collected and analyzed, many devices may have already been loaded and tested in one or more failed sockets. 
     Thus, a need remains for a system capable of quickly realizing the location of failed test sockets and alerting user to remove the socket from the test fixture or repair the same. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     The need remaining in the prior art is addressed by the present invention, which relates to an automated test position monitoring and notification system and, more particularly to a monitoring system capable of continuously analyzing thousands of “test sockets” and notifying a system user of failures associated with failed sockets. 
     In accordance with the present invention a monitoring system includes a manufacturing database, a failure summary database, and a monitoring program. The monitoring program is used to establish a “suspect threshold” for the sockets within the test arrangement (for example, three consecutive “device failures” in a given socket). As the testing process is taking place, the test data is stored in the manufacturing database. The monitoring program continuously queries the monitoring database, looking for “suspect” sockets. When such sockets are identified, the monitoring program then queries the “failure summary database” for long-term information (for example, a month&#39;s worth of data) regarding that particular socket. If the total number of failures over the longer time period exceeds a predefined threshold, an “alarm” is posted to identify the potentially faulty socket. 
     In a preferred embodiment, the monitoring program is capable of sending an “alarm” message to the proper user using e-mail, paging, etc. In this embodiment, a failed socket may be quickly repaired and returned to service. Advantageously, the monitoring program can be altered as different users are responsible for overseeing the testing process. 
     An additional feature of the present invention is the inclusion of a web-based browser allowing access to socket data from virtually anywhere via an HTML viewer, such as Netscape. A CGI/web-based application provides a prioritized list of problem sockets upon request such that any “suspect” socket can then be retrieved and the historical data associated with the socket viewed on-line. 
     Other and further embodiments of the present invention will become apparent during the course of the following discussion and by reference to the accompanying drawings. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     Referring now to the drawings where like numerals represent like parts in several views: 
     FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary test arrangement, including a conventional fixture for simultaneously testing a plurality of devices; 
     FIG. 2 illustrates an exemplary test panel, used to support a pair of test fixtures: 
     FIG. 3 illustrates an exemplary test rack, used to support a pair of test panels; 
     FIG. 4 illustrates an exemplary test structure, used to support a plurality of test racks; 
     FIG. 5 contains a flow chart illustrating the monitoring and notification system of the present invention; 
     FIG. 6 contains a second flow chart, illustrating an exemplary system for evaluating test data contained within the manufacturing data base; 
     FIG. 7 is an exemplary table illustrating a set of potentially faulty sockets as detected by the monitoring system of the present invention; and 
     FIG. 8 is an exemplary table of a detailed “history” of one of the potentially faulty sockets of FIG. 7, the historical data taken from the failure summary database. 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
     FIG. 1 illustrates a portion of a testing arrangement  10  which may use the monitoring and notification system of the present invention. Illustrated in FIG. 1 is an exemplary test fixture  12  containing a plurality of test sockets  14 , each socket  14  for supporting a separate device  16  to be tested. As mentioned above, the type of device being tested may be an electronic device, an optoelectronic device, or an appropriate combination of devices forming a subassembly. In general, the type of device being tested is not germane to the subject matter of the present invention. Associated with arrangement  10  is a test apparatus  18 , including a number of separate probes  20 , each probe for contacting a separate one of the devices  16  and collecting data regarding the performance of device  16 . For some complicated devices (such as subassemblies), five or more separate test points may be contacted on each device. Therefore, presuming that there are fifty devices being tested, and each device contains five test points, a total of 250 data points are collected with respect to fixture  12 . This test data is then stored in a manufacturing database  22 . 
     In most test arrangements, more than one fixture is being subjected to the testing conditions. As shown in FIG. 2, an exemplary test panel  24  may be formed to support a pair of test fixtures  12 . Therefore (continuing with the presumption of 50 sockets per fixture and 5 test points per socket), a total of 500 data points are collected and stored in manufacturing database  22  for each panel in the test system. Referring to FIG. 3, a test rack  26  is formed to support a pair of test panels  24 . A complete test system  28 , as shown in FIG. 4 may house as many as, for example, 20 separate test racks. During one test cycle, therefore, an exemplary test system  28  would collect 20,000 pieces of data to be stored in manufacturing database  22 . As mentioned above, a difficulty with monitoring such a system in the prior art is the ability to determine the presence of a “faulty” socket, as opposed to a “faulty” device in a timely manner so as not to scrap good devices. 
     In accordance with the present invention, a monitoring and notification system has been developed to detect the presence of potentially faulty sockets within a test system and notify the proper user of the location of these sockets. As shown in FIG.  4  and discussed in detail below in association with FIGS. 5 and 6, the system of the present invention uses the manufacturing database  18 , a failure summary database  38  (discussed below) and a monitoring and notification program  29 . The system is best understood by way of the following flow charts. In particular, FIG. 5 includes a flow chart illustrating the monitoring and notification system of the present invention. The system is initialized at step  30 , which sets parameters such as a threshold level for “suspect” test sockets within the monitoring and notification program  29 . For example, if a particular test socket fails three devices in a row, it may be defined as “suspect”. Another threshold level may be live failures in a row. In general, the “suspect” threshold level is set by the system user and, moreover, may be changed or modified at any time by the system user. With the threshold level set, the monitoring process, as indicated by step  32 , then queries manufacturing data base  22 , reviewing the most recent data associated with each socket in sequence. In one embodiment, manufacturing data base  22  may retain three days&#39; worth of data for each socket (or, for example, four or five days&#39; worth). Since this query of manufacturing data base  22  must be relatively fast and efficient, a large amount of data for each socket is not retained. As this data is being retrieved, the “failure rate” at each test socket is reviewed against the predefined threshold, as indicated by step  34 . During this monitoring and notification process, additionally arriving data is constantly being added to manufacturing data base to update its records, as indicated by step  36 . 
     An exemplary test cycle may run for twelve hours, resulting in two complete data-gathering cycles to be completed each day. This cycle time results in an extremely large body of data be gathered at a relatively quickly rate. Using the numbers discussed above, for example, a single day&#39;s worth of testing would result in 40,000 data items to be stored. Since the system of the present invention may be used in many different testing environments, this volume of data is exemplary only; other scenarios may require the capture and retention of even larger volume of data. 
     Once a particular socket is identified as “suspect”, the monitoring system of the present invention sends a query to a failure summary database  38  to search for additional information regarding the failed socket. Failure summary database  38  contains historical “failure” information for each socket, for example, failure data for the past month related to each socket. If a predetermined failure threshold is exceeded upon this review (for example, 10 failures in the past 14 days), the monitoring system of the present invention will send an alarm to system user, as indicated at step  40  in FIG.  5 . The alarm may take the form of an e-mail or page to a system user, the message containing the identity of the potentially faulty socket (the “identity”, as will be discussed below, may be defined by a numerical designation of the “socket-fixture-panel-rack”). 
     As long as the historical data does not indicate the presence of a potentially faulty socket (or after an alarm has been sent in the situation where a potentially faulty socket is identified), any insignificant socket information may be filtered out, as indicated at step  42 . The remaining data may then be prioritized, as indicated at step  44  and used to provide graphical output data to the system user, shown as step  46 . In this fashion, “potential” faulty locations may be identified early and reviewed before a problem occurs. 
     FIG. 6 illustrates an exemplary “data mining” process that may be used with the monitoring system of the present invention. As shown, all failure data in the manufacturing data base is captured at step  50  of the process, and forwarded to failure summary database  38 , where it will be stored for the predetermined length of time (for example, storing a months worth of failure data for each socket). Using a particular “failure” threshold, such as more than five failures in the past ten days, failure summary database  38  can be queried, as indicated at step  52 , to identify the sockets with the highest number of failures. Step  54  is then used to filter out those sockets that fall below the predetermined threshold, where this information is used to update failure summary database  38 . As mentioned above, this data may be used to “predict” the status of the test sockets and allow for the sockets to be quickly replaced or repaired. 
     FIG. 7 contains a read-out of test data related to “socket failures” in an exemplary system, where this read-out is typical of a report that can be accessed via an HTML browser. The data is printed out in rank order of “most failures” to “least failures”. The exemplary report as shown in FIG. 7 contains failures for the past 14 days, where this time period should be considered as exemplary only. An advantage of the HTML-based report as shown is that any desired socket number can then be immediately accessed and its historical data reviewed, as shown in FIG.  8 . FIG. 8 contains a chart illustrating this historical data of a particular socket, in this case, socket  1 - 1 - 2 - 18  (i.e., the first socket in the first fixture of the second panel in the eighteenth rack). Since this socket has experiences a significant number of failures in the past 14 days, an alarm will be sent to the system user, identifying socket  1 - 1 - 2 - 18  as a “potentially faulty” socket. As mentioned above, the alarm notification may take the form of, for example, an e-mail message to the appropriate user. Alternatively, the alarm may use a paging system to notify the user in an expedited fashion. In general, any system for notifying the system administration user may be used and is considered to fall within the spirit and scope of the present invention.