Solid state drive testing shifts to single platform

8th August 2016

Mick Elliott

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The MPT3000HVM system has been developed by Advantest to provide a single platform to test the full range of SATA, SAS, and PCIe solid-state drives (SSDs), from the highest performance enterprise to the most cost-effective client SSDs. The system achieves this optimal production test solution by leveraging the proven MPT3000 tester-per-DUT (device under test) architecture and unique hardware acceleration in a new high-density configuration.

The SSD market is forecast to grow to over 300m units by 2019, according to the research firm Gartner, so customers need a flexible and scalable test solution with the lowest cost of test across their expanding product portfolios.

The MPT3000HVM gives SSD manufacturers a single platform that handles the broad range of SSD protocols and form factors.

Like all models in the MPT3000 series, the new system tests all major protocols including SAS 12G, SATA 6G and PCIe (with NVMe or AHCI) through FPGA firmware downloads. The system also tests a wide variety of form factors, including U.2, M.2 and AIC cards, by utilising changeable passive interface boards. Production change-over times between various SSD products take just minutes.

The tester supports the increasing power range of high-performance SSDs, controlling up to 25-W devices with a new closed-loop thermal control capability. It also increases manufacturers’ floor space utilization with a reduced-footprint, modular and scalable, high-density solution.

The MPT3000 platform’s ease of use is enhanced with Stylus software user interfaces for both engineering and production environments.

Added to Stylus with the MPT3000HVM is the new SLATE interface, optimised for asynchronous single-DUT testing in a high-volume production environment. Stylus comes with a complete test-method library and debugging features.

Casual to advanced users can easily create test flows by using the system’s test-method library while expert users have the capability to develop and modify any desired test methods using C/C+ and extensive application programming interfaces (APIs).