Electrical Testing of Passive Components

As technology grows and PCB sizes shrink the demand for embedded technologies will only grow. Many end-users are designing embedded passives into their products and the Electrical Test community is expected to provide the test solutions for these new powerful designs. The use of buried resistors is increasing and care must be taken to identify these components during the ET CAM process so that the test machines are aware of them and do not overpower them with standard test parameters.

For the design community that uses the buried core technology the manufacturers of this material have always recommended using the largest configuration for the buried resistor as feasible. As noted previously the "square" should be as large as feasible to provide the required resistance while also maintaining the optimum power dissipation level to ensure long life and stability.

Buried capacitance has been around for a long time but is also increasing. The ability for Electrical Test to accurately test this type of product is crucial. Accurately identifying and allowing the buried capacitance component, results in improved throughput and delivery. It also reduces unnecessary delays, troubleshooting and unfortunate scrap of product that is actually good.