Why has FCT replaced ICT in PCBA testing become a trend?

Before PCBA boards are delivered to customers, they generally undergo rigorous electrical and performance testing. In PCBA testing, the most common are FCT function test and ICT electrical component test. When PCBA first began to emerge, ICT became the mainstream, including many large electronic product design companies, such as the cell phone industry is still following the ICT model, all the original parts of the rigorous testing, so that you can quickly detect whether the components on the circuit board in line with its design values and parameters, to avoid the tragedy of a capacitor dry over the entire circuit board.

However, with the rapid development of the semiconductor industry, the electronic components are more and more intensive, its production process and stability is becoming more and more mature, which makes ICT test applications more and more narrow. Many small and medium-sized PCBA electronic manufacturing and processing factories basically no longer use ICT test as the mainstream mode, and began to gradually emphasize the FCT function test. The factories will generally require customers to provide FCT test program, including test procedures, test racks and related test steps, so that before shipment of all PCBA after rigorous FCT test, and then delivered to the hands of customers.

FCT replaces ICT for another reason is the cost, FCT is generally cheaper, it is customized according to the customer's design, test rack cost more between 1000 and 5000, however, ICT equipment needs to be provided by professional vendors, the cost of its cost ranges from a few tens of thousands of hundreds of thousands of different. In addition, because ICT needs to cover many components, which makes the production of the thimble platform is extremely complex, difficult and costly. Therefore, ICT testing is now more in the shipment of a great deal of general-purpose equipment and product lines.

More and more ICT equipment manufacturers are beginning to integrate FCT functions in their equipment, and this trend has become increasingly obvious. However, it is difficult to standardize the functions of FCT test, which makes it difficult to develop general-purpose FCT test equipment, and the mainstream in the market at present is to customize according to different models and products of customers. Usually according to customer FCT design, customize the corresponding test frame and test platform, the general cycle is completed within 3 to 7 days, the cost of 3000 to 10000 yuan, more suitable for flexible and variable PCBA processing small and medium-sized enterprises production model scenarios.