The OTP Platform Functional test systems used to be either custom made by the customers inhouse test department or a local system integrator. As an alternative standard systems provided by the instrument manufacturers were available for focused application areas. While the "custom made" approach is associated with significant planning and engineering efforts, the standard systems often lack flexibility and and scalability making them costly for less demanding applications.

The LXinstruments Open Test Platform OTP takes a different approach and utilizes the following standardized building blocks:

• An expandable matrix (analogue stimulus & response) and switching system based on the Agilent 34980A mainframe and a wide range of modules
  
• A wide range of supported LXI instruments (DMM, analog stimulus, generators, digital I/O, oscilloscopes) and LXI power supplies
  
• The LXinstruments software platform based on COTS test sequencers (TestStand or TestExec SL)
  
• Rack, power feed, fixture interface and infrastructure

The building blocks typically cover 70-80% of the requirements for a specific system. Application specific enhancements and modifications lead to a system which corresponds exactly to the customers requirements. Due to reduced development efforts significant cost savings can be achieved.

Matrix Concept

The modular matrix concept is the backbone of the OTP architecture. Within the standard, 12 instrument ports are available to connect to the analog measurement resources of the system. 4 analog busses support a routing of any resource to any test pin. With the first matrix, 16 test pins are available. Each matrix added to the system extends the quantity of test pins by 32.