Boundaries without Limit Goepel Electronic

BOUNDARIES WITHOUT LIMIT

Goepel Electronic is a global leader in electrical test technology equipment. Philip Yorke talked to Thomas Wenzel, the company’s managing director, about the strategy behind its dynamic growth and the pioneering, innovative products currently being launched at Nepcon.

Goepel Electronic was founded in 1991 by three entrepreneurs in Germany’s equivalent of Silicon valley – Jena, the home of Carl Zeiss.

The company has been a leading pioneer of advanced electrical test technology for electrical components and PCBs, and pioneered the development of the first JTAG/ Boundary Scan. This scan technology is considered to be the most innovative and efficient test process available, which, like ICT, tests within the circuit and detects structural fault locations by setting thousands of test points, even under BGAs, with only four test bus lines. JTAG/Boundary Scan Technology can be used throughout a product’s entire life cycle and no mechanical access is required. The advanced test procedure accelerates the development of new products, while reducing time to market and offers a fast turnaround and simultaneous testing and programming within just one programme sequence.

However, Goepel Electronic is not only respected for its work in developing boundary scan test processes but for many other ground-breaking test procedures such as its special VarioTAP IPs for testing the new generation of femtocell chips in association with Picochip and safe in-line inspection technology of double-sided equipped BGA components. Today Goepel Electronic employs about 180 people and in 2010 recorded sales of more than €22 million.

Three-dimensional success

One of the company’s latest innovative products is its 3D inspection system, OptiCon X-Line 3D, which enables the safe quality control of solder joints on opposed mounted BGA components. This system is unrivalled worldwide and utilises revolutionary gigapixel image technology. This unique product offers a multi-angle image, recorded in real-time and provides test speeds of 40cm2/s for full 3D PCB capturing. In addition, integrated reconstruction methods based on digital tomosynthesis allows clearly defined evaluation of the board’s single layers. Furthermore, full-sized 3D X-ray inspection (AXI) allows layered analysis of all solder joints of a PCB within the production process, and powerful analysis software provides the safe evaluation of detected faults.

Mr Wenzel said, “There is no one in the electronic testing industry working to the same level as us and therefore no one can offer anything approaching our range of advanced scanning technology solutions. For example, our revolutionary X-ray system detects voids and offers complete 3D capturing while providing the opportunity to analyse both the top and bottom sides of

the boards and all layers in between, layer by layer. Our auto-test division also offers complete turnkey solutions and we have started to develop our own camera for our advanced AOI systems.”

Mr Wenzel added, “The target for Goepel Electronic is not to focus on a single product line but to be a single product solutions provider. One and a half years ago we opened a brand new R&D production centre at our HQ in Germany; however, we are still using our outside specialist sources in order to be able to offer a high level of flexibility to our customers. Our GATE (Goepel Associated Technical Experts) alliance partners play a major role in technology transfer.

“These design houses, test houses and system integrators provide special knowledge and services, which means that we are well placed to individually support any of our core customers, whether OEMs, ODMs or EMSs.

“Last year our growth rate was 27 per cent and we are targeting a double-digit growth this year; in fact we are almost there and only just into the second half of the year. Part of this success lies in the fact that we work as close technology partners with our clients and maintain excellent communications with them while offering flexible solutions strategies. In addition, once a year we sponsor special ‘technology days’ with up to 300 people in our user group meetings, which is very popular with our clients as it also puts them at the forefront of our cutting-edge test technology solutions. Today Goepel Electronic’s important emerging market sectors include medical equipment, public transport and contract manufacturing. We have offices in the USA and throughout Europe and recently opened an office in Hong Kong to serve the Chinese market. We have also established a presence in India for the growing automotive market there.” Multi-dimensional instrumentation

At this year’s NEPCON Shenzhen, Goepel Electronic Ltd Asia presented its latest offerings in Mult-Dimensional Boundary Scan Instrumentation, in addition to its advanced chip embedded testing, debug and programming tools. Visitors to its booth were able to learn how to enable straightforward control of on-chip or on-system test, as well as programming functions of any complexity, based on the IEE 1149.1 test bus protocol and fully synchronous with other JTAG/Boundary Scan operations. They were also informed about Boundary Scan integration opportunities into other automated test equipment such as in-circuit testers, flying probers, MDA, functional test systems and automated optical inspection systems. During the last year alone, Goepel Electronic introduced around 40 new and ground-breaking Boundary Scan software and hardware products. n