industry news - Chip Scale Review

TEST PATTERNS
The ‘Mainframe Mentality’ Lives On!
By Paul M. Sakamoto, Contributing Editor–Test [paul.sakamoto@inovys.com]
I
would guess that about half of
you who read this column
remember the time when mainframe
computers roamed the land.
The closely related mini-computer
was its scaled-down little brother. Aside
from the fact that they were very large
by today’s standards, these machines all
had proprietary operating systems and
programming languages.
This required specialized training for
the various models from different manufacturers.
Additionally, the networking
between these machines was very difficult
and aided the growth of specialized
companies to address the task.
Slow to Adopt Standards
The biggest reason that the industry was
slow to adopt standards was that it
allowed vendors to keep their customers
virtually enslaved once users adopted a
maker’s proprietary system.
It also allowed the manufacturer to
charge for a very wide variety of related
goods and services that only they could
provide.
Fortunately, today we have standards
for software, applications and networking
that are applied very broadly. These
standards allow the direct re-use of data
and information on virtually all current
computers, smart phones, PDAs, and
other computing machines.
My rant today is that this is not the
case for ATE.
3600Plus & 3700Plus
More performance with
fewer limitations.
The 3600Plus and 3700Plus wire bonders break new ground
in innovation and design. Offering you more performance,
options and versatility, the Plus Series combines intuitive
technology with quality and reliability:
• PowerRibbon TM Option for ribbon sizes 20 mil x 4 mil to
80 mil x 8 mil
• Bond Process Monitoring (BPM) flags suspect bonds in
real-time, stores process information for later evaluation
• Active Loop Control (ALC) bondheads allow best-in-class
loop control and non-destructive pulltesting
• Offline Programming Tool (OPT) converts CAD files into
machine process programs, maximizing machine uptime
New machine capabilities for greater performance, new
international offices for better service, and a new interconnect technology
— Orthodyne is committed to giving customers more.
10
Chip Scale Review ■ March 2007 ■ [ChipScaleReview.com]