I have been working with some board layouts that include a test point for every net on the circuit (or close to it). This lead me to a search for other topics about test points and general design-for-test procedures and guidelines around here, but I found nothing. So, my question is a bit broad and ill-defined, but here goes:
- What manner of production testing do you commonly employ on your product designs?
- Is there a point at which some methods become worthwhile, and where are these points? E.g. manual testing of populated board, to flying probes, to bed-of-nails, etc.
- I read about the design and building of the BeagleBoard, which is considerably more complex than our board, but it does not appear to include any of this sort of testing at all (e.g. no bed of nails or test points, they have a software test).
- All of our boards are microcontroller based. Are the basic functions of power, ground, and clock reliable enough in manufacturing to use the micro for a built-in self test?