The extensive use of electronic products in everyday life has only been made
possible with the advent of, and substantial advances in, the field of
microelectronic circuit engineering. The types of microelectronic circuits that can
be developed today provide for a complex circuit behaviour within a physically
small package. The advent of high-value, high-functionality portable electronic
systems such as the laptop computer, mobile phone and Personal Digital Assistant
(PDA), are testament to this. Since the successful demonstration of the transistor
back in 1947 by Bardeen, Brattain, and Shockley at Bell Laboratories (USA), in
just over half a century the ability to create microelectronic circuits containing tens
of millions of transistors is a remarkable statement of achievement. The trend
towards increases in design complexity and speed of operation, coupled with the
need for improvements in the engineering processes utilised in order further to
reduce product costs, is leading to improvements in all aspects of device design,
fabrication and test. It is the field of test engineering that this book aims to identify
and discuss.