Specifications

Quality Control of Frequencies for Mobile Phones
Electronics Assembly
Taiwan
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Introduction
The high cost of state-of-the-art quality control systems for mobile phones has created a
demand for more cost-effective alternatives. A leading ODM mobile phone manufacturer in
Taiwan found such an alternative with Advantech. Standard products from Advantech were
used to verify GSM and GPRS signals of mobile phones. The basic quality control procedure
for frequencies used to require the phone to be tested, an operator, a test instrument, and a
test station. This test would take approximately 1 minute per phone.
After implementing the new test equipment, the testing time was reduced to one operator using
4 test stations to simultaneously check 4 phones in 20 seconds; an output improvement of
1,200%. Reduced human error was another bonus, and the entire process is now accomplished
at the fraction of the cost of a high-end, quality control system.
Project Requirements
Although a fully-automatic system would be ideal,
there are usually many different mobile phone
models running on a production line. It is therefore
rarely cost-effective to replace an operator with a
robotic arm to move mobile phones in and out of the
test stations. The goal here is therefore to reduce the
working process of the operator to the simplest tasks
possible. In this case, the process was reduced to
placing and removing mobile phones from a test
station, discarding any malfunctioning units.
Solution Description
The new process starts with an operator placing
4 mobile phones into the 4 test stations, and then
pressing a button to start the test. The PCI-1762
is used as a multiplexer to switch between output
channels, creating a connection between the analog
signals from the PCI-1723 and the mobile phones.
PCI-1723 sends an analog output signal to each of
the mobile phones. This simulates a dial-out signal,
and the phone responds by sending out a 900 MHz
GSM signal. This signal goes to the Agilent 8960
instrument, which measures the frequency and
passes this information on to IPC-6806 via the
PCI-1670 GPIB card. The measured frequency is
captured by software and beep codes are output to
signal to the operator if the frequency is within the
acceptable range. (Visual signals are also possible
with VGA output to a screen).
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