The intention of any printed circuit board manufacturing line is to offer competitive products that can meet customers’ expectations. However, poor quality materials, board design problems and PCB process-related failures may impair product quality. Effective testing is crucial to ensure a product’s competitive advantage.
The in-circuit tester is a good quality assurance tool for testing and detecting component failures and process defects. It uses electrical probes to test all the components of fully populated PCBs. It isolates and examines one component at a time, even when the devices are interconnected with traces. Component testing may be performed with a bed-of-nails test fixture and special test equipment.