Benefits of a TPS virtual layer

To minimize the life cycle cost of a program, it is essential that re-hosting of TPSs be minimized, or the TPS be designed in such a way as to minimize ATS rehosting efforts. One possible way of doing this is by software abstraction. This abstraction allows the TPSs to be designed so that the ATE can be modified without impact on the TPS source code. This software abstraction is called a TPS virtual layer. This paper defines a test program set (TPS) virtual layer, and shows what types of programs would benefit from using a TPS virtual layer and the benefits and drawbacks of a TPS virtual layer.