Improvements to the HP TestJet Probe Amplifier

Agilent Technologies, Loveland, CO. Engineering, 2000-01

Liaison(s): David Dorn, Ron Peiffer, Phil King
Advisor(s): Jim Rosenberg (Fall), Sam Tanenbaum (Spring)
Students(s): Jerod Meacham (TL), Michael Sakasegawa, Tina Wang, Charles Boehm

The TestJet System detects solder faults in circuit boards at the manufacturing stage by measuring the capacitance between a probe plate and the IC lead frame of the device under test. An amplifier on the probe plate amplifies the signal measured by the probe so that it can be sent over wires to the rest of the system. The Clinic team has investigated new circuit topologies for an amplifier that would increase the gain of the system while lowering the noise, thus improving the performance of the TestJet System.