ATE Life Extension Using Emulated Peripherals

Abstract

The United States Armed Forces and many of our military allies, still must rely on decades-old computer systems to accomplish crucial tasks. These “legacy” computers were used in many early military test stands. A significant number of these ATE stations remain in use today, providing testing capability for early versions of military aircraft and weapons systems. These legacy military ATE's often cannot be affordably rehosted to newer computer platforms, so they must be kept running - some for many years to come. The primary weakness of these legacy computers are the data storage peripherals, which are a leading cause of aging ATE downtime.