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Introduction to STDF
As the ATE industry matures, many vendors offer networking systems that
complement the test systems themselves and help customers get more out
of their ATE investment. Many of these networking systems are converging
on popular standards, such as Ethernet. A glaring hole in these standards
has been the lack of test result data compatibility between test systems
of different manufacturers, and sometimes within the product lines of
a single manufacturer. In order to help overcome this problem, Teradyne
has developed a simple, flexible, portable data format to which existing
data files and formats can be easily and economically converted. Called
the Standard Test Data Format ( STDF.
), its specification is contained in the following document. It is our
hope that both users and manufacturers of semiconductor ATE will find
this standard useful,
and will incorporate it into their own operations and products. Teradyne
has adopted this standard for the test result output of all of its UNIX.
Operating system based testers, and offers conversion software for users
of its Test System Director for our other semiconductor test systems.
Teradyne derives no direct commercial benefit from propagating this standard,
but we hope its usefulness, thoroughness, and full documentation will
make all of us who work with ATE more productive.
Teradyne's Use of the STDF Specification
The Standard Test Data Format is intended as a comprehensive standard
for the entire ATE industry, not as a description of how Teradyne writes
or analyzes test result data. A test system can support STDF without using
all the STDF record types or filling
in all the fields of the record types it does use. Similarly, when the
specification says that an STDF record type can be used to create a certain
report, it cannot be assumed that Teradyne data analysis software always
uses the record type to create its reports. In addition, the statement
that a field or record is required or optional applies only to the definition
of a valid STDF file; data
analysis software may require a field that is declared optional in the
specification. For this reason, the STDF specification is not the final
reference on how any piece of Teradyne software implements the specification.
To determine how a Teradyne test system fills in the STDF record types,
please refer to the documentation for that test system's executive software.
To determine what STDF
fields are used by a Teradyne data analysis tool, refer to the documentation
for the data analysis product.
Source: Engineering Technology &
Industrial Distribution
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