IPTE Germany opens Fixture House

04 August 2011 - IPTE Germany GmbH has opened a Fixture House at is company site near Nuremberg/Germany. Here, bed-of-nails adapters are being produced according to the highest standards for an entire range of relevant applications, such as in-circuit tests, functional tests, flash programming and end-of-line product tests.

The Fixture House department currently employs a staff of twelve. What is unique in this business is the specific service featuring comprehensive automated verification of each adapter before its delivery to the customer. A special fixture tester rigorously checks all contacts and the wiring by continuity and short-circuit tests, and after completion, provides a full report of the entire process. Therefore, not a single flaw can go undetected.

The Fixture House’s vertical range of adapter manufacture abilities comprises mechanical design, production of the individual parts needed, build-up, fixed wiring, and the electrical and mechanical tests. As an adapter of this kind is always a custom-specific item, the fixture-test procedure too can be exactly designed according to special user requirements. And with strain gauge strips a precise mechanical stress test of the fixtures can also be provided. The bed-of-nails can additionally be equipped with optical fibers for the DUTs (devices under test), for example, based on LED technology. Another option is a preventive top-class ESD (electrostatic discharge) coating of the adapter surface.

The IPTE Fixture House has access to a huge stockpile of standard parts needed for adapter construction, and the manufacture process is based on partial pre-wiring. These measures therefore allow for a very quick response to incoming orders, as well as a very short lead-time. The bed-of-nails adapters are being delivered and used worldwide, with customers located in, for example, Europe, India, China and Mexico mainly from the automotive industry, where the demands on fixture quality and reliability are especially high.