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Tangram
Model-based integration and testing of complex high-tech
products
The Tangram project aims at a significant reduction of lead time and cost in
the integration and test phase of complex high-tech products. At the same time
the product quality should be maintained or improved.
Detailed information can be found in the summary of the
project plan
The main reason to initiate this project is fairly simple.
The performance demands on high-tech products keep on growing; they should be
faster, more accurate, their uptime should be increased, etc. The business
demands on these products keep on growing as well; the time to get such products
to the market is getting shorter and the same goes for the period in which the
return on investment can be obtained.
So while engineers have to do their utmost to deliver technology that sometimes
has not been invented yet, the market dictates them to do it faster, cheaper and
better. This challenge is never more present than when system parts from
different projects and from different disciplines (optics, mechanics,
electronics and software) have to be integrated and tested.
The combination of this 'faster, cheaper and better' issue and integrating
multi-disciplinary state of the art technology, gives ample reason to want a
breakthrough. It gives ample reason to want Tangram.
Model-based integration and test to provide a breakthrough.
The
solutions are less simple. Nevertheless there is a firm belief in the Tangram
hypothesis that model-based integration and test will result in significant
improvements. Tangram foresees research and development along four Lines of
Attention (LoA) that will be constantly challenged by a real life industrial
case: a wafer scanner at ASML.
- The LoA with focus on strategy will develop models of integration- and
test processes featuring cost, parts to integrate, combinations to test,
time to spend and product quality to achieve, as well as methods for test
selection.
- The LoA that concentrates on test
generation & execution will deliver model-based methods
and tools for generating, executing and evaluating testcases as well as
model-based simulations for parts that are not yet available.
- The LoA that aims at model-based diagnosis will deliver methods and
tools that are capable of diagnosing the internals of a system by monitoring
its inputs and outputs.
- The infrastructure LoA will deliver an environment that is capable of
interconnecting the models and tools that result from the other LoA's.
Another view on where and how we want to apply models is depicted in the
picture below
Partners.
Tangram has teamed up the expertise and competence required to establish a
breakthrough. Three universities: Delft University of Technology; Eindhoven
University of Technology and Radboud University Nijmegen.
The institutes ESI and TNO-TPD. The industrial partner Science & Technology
and finally ASML as Carrying Industrial Partner.
The project is partly subsidized by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs.
Duration and effort.
The Tangram project started in 2003 and will run until 2007, providing a
total effort of roughly 60 FTE.
Contact.
For additional information, please contact
luud.engels esi.nl
Last updated: January 24, 2007
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