EDN has named Bloomy Controls Headless ATE System as one of the "100 Hot Products of 2012." The 2012 EDN Hot 100 highlights the electronics industry's most significant products of the year based on innovation, significance, usefulness, and popularity.
The Headless ATE System is an automated test platform that is extremely simple to operate and does not require a PC. It consists of a 3U enclosure containing National Instruments Single-Board RIO with LabVIEW Software, a power supply, and one or more commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) test instruments. The front panel provides the user with only a few mechanical push buttons, and contains pass/fail LED indicators. A supervisory application runs on a centrally-located networked PC to maintain the test program, instrument configuration settings, and test limits.
The simplicity of Bloomy Controls Headless ATE System is beneficial to manufacturing facilities that have multiple manual test stations, operator usability concerns, or a low volume and high product mix requiring frequent changeovers.
The Hot 100 products are selected via a combination of both reader popularity and editor judgment. EDN editors chose Bloomy Controls' Headless ATE System because of the simplicity in the user interface, and the network connectivity for supervisor use and setup, without the need for an external computer at each test station. Most test setups use external PCs, but not this one.
"By simplifying the operator panel and centralizing the setup and configuration of multiple test stations, the headless ATE system dramatically improves test-process reliability. The customer benefits from having a simplified process, as well as error-free data recording and analysis" explains Robert Putala, senior systems engineer at Bloomy Controls.
The complete list of EDN's Hot 100 products can be found online at or within the December 14, 2012 issue of EDN Magazine.