The MCU market
The MCU market is growing ($12.2Billion market last year)
Low cost MCUs in the range of 50 cents to $5 can be found in applications ranging from give-away toys at fast food restaurants to home appliances to the BMW 745i luxury sedan to space-based platforms.
Just think to our VTEP!!!
Best Fitting Markets Microcontrollers are used everywhere
Consumer (White Goods Europe)
Automotive
Industrial
Pre-Programming on device level
Needs expensive equipment
Captital Cost
Maintenence Cost
Operating Cost
Unflexible and expensive Material Handling
Each programmed device type needs individual labeling and different part number
Complex expensive Logistic
Changes in software can’t be implemented on the fly
Board specific data can’t be programmed
On Board Programming Economic and flexible
at Functional Test
Good idea, if Functional Test exists
But Functional Test is usual the bottleneck of a line
at Dedicated Standalone Programming Station
Needs additional equipment and some fixturing
Needs additional Operators
at Incircuit Test
Very good fit because ICT is fast , fixturing already exists and flow to repair station is connected to ICT anyway
What is the problem programming MCU‘s on todays ICT?
Microcontrollers are programmed through serial interfaces
The Serial Protocols are quite complex
ICT Hardware and Software was not designed to handle sthis issues
If customer is doing programming today, complex fixture selectronics has to be used.