Intusoft’s Test Designer and Spice Farm Receive Best in Test Award


San Pedro, CA, January 25, 1998 -- Intusoft announced today that Test Designer, their ground-breaking simulation-based test synthesis tool, and Spice Farm, a high-speed Internet-based simulation processing program, have been chosen to receive the prestigious “Best in Test” award for 1998 from the editors of Test and Measurement World Magazine. This award honors companies with a new product that has brought a significant technological advance to market in the test industry over the past year.

Test Designer and SpiceFarm were one of only ten products selected for the honor this year in an industry-wide search. The two popular Intusoft products are now in the running for the Product of the Year, to be announced at Nepcon West in Anaheim on the evening of February 23, 1999. For more information about the awards, and the Best in Test winners for 1998, visit http://www.tmworld.com/prod/best_test/best_in_test_1999.htm.

 Test Designer automates test program development for analog and mixed-signal systems, circuits, and ICs. Existing features include:

-synthesizes product acceptance, fault isolation, and fault diagnostic test sequences

-generates detailed fault trees, test strategy reports using ATE independent code, and failure mode effects analysis (FMEA) data.

-automates the most time-consuming test program development tasks and performs automated failure analysis and reporting, including a fault coverage percentage for any analog or mixed-signal circuit.

Test Designer is a vast improvement over current manual test development practices. It provides a structured, accurate, and efficient framework which dramatically reduces the time-consuming process of test software development.
 
 SpiceFarm™, a bank of very fast computers that can be accessed over the Internet, has been integrated into Test Designer’s list of features. Because Test Designer allows the user to simulate each and every failure mode in the circuit, this may necessitate a large number of simulations. In addition, Monte Carlo simulations are often performed to set test tolerances. The SpiceFarm™ can be used to dramatically cut down the simulation times by running the simulation in parallel. The interface is completely transparent to the user and can be set up for Intranet or Internet usage. The data exchanged between the SpiceFarm™ and Test Designer is encrypted and compressed in order to insure security and data integrity.

 Other new Test Designer features include Web-based help, which is now available directly from within the schematic capture tool. Users can access a new Help menu item, "Intusoft on the Web," which provides access to technical support and the Intusoft home page. The Help menu is expandable; users can add their own web links to the menu.

 Test Designer is a complete system and includes an integrated schematic entry tool, extensive model libraries, state-of-the-art SPICE3 based analog and mixed signal simulator, a graphical data post processor, and a host of features that handle the test data analysis and reporting. Over 14,000 part models are provided and most include predefined failure modes. For example, all passive and active components use the US Navy CASS “standard” for the default failure modes. The list price of Test Designer is $13,800, which includes one year maintenance. Test Designer is Windows 95/98 or Windows NT-compatible.

Established in 1985, Intusoft designs develops and markets award-winning software applications and tools for analog and mixed-signal circuit design, analysis and test automation to electronics industries worldwide.

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For Further Information Contact:

Intusoft
P.O Box 710
San Pedro, CA
90733-1070
Tel: 310-833-0710
FAX: 310-833-9658
e-mail: info@intusoft.com