Testing and programming flash memories on assemblies during high volume production

Testing and programming flash memories is becoming increasingly important when producing high volumes of assemblies. There is a growing trend to program the flash memories during board assembly by means of a tester, moving programming issues to the test department. Problematic is the relatively long time required for programming the flash devices in the production line. This is a strong driver for testing connectivity before programming. In order to reduce the programming time methods are discussed and a Fast Flash Controller (FFC) is presented which enables programming of flash memories close to their maximum programming speed.