About a dozen years ago, the world of test had reached an economic impasse: most digital designs had become sufficiently complex that standard scan testing techniques were no longer cost-effective.

Test compression technology was invented to address the problem of escalating test-pattern size. Compression allows more test vectors to be applied to an IC in a shorter time and with fewer tester ...

I noted in a 2005 column (see "Current compression test methods" under “Editor's Pick,” at top right) that there are three basic methods of loading a composite material test specimen in compression: ...