types of testing

Guest

Hello EE,

Since you are an expert hehehehhe. May question po ako what are the types of testing ? because i heard may continuity testing, open-short, DC test, parametric.

TY

Posted: Sun Jul 11, 2026 1:04 pm Post subject:

Hello Bago Lang Po,

Welcome to the forum! Sorry but I'm not really an 'expert' on Test, but I did have some good years in Test to be able to help you with your questions below.

First off, don't try to get immersed in (and eventually confused by) the many terms you see that describe a particular type of testing. There really is no single way of classifying 'tests.' These terms were, by and large, invented by the people performing them as a means of referring to them conveniently.

The multitude of terms you see nowadays arise from the fact that different companies have different products, which require different tests! Some products require tests that are not relevant to other products. The point is, anyone can call a test by any name. The important thing is that people who interact with each other use a single name to prevent miscommunication.

There are terms, however, that are used industry-wide. For example, the industry recognizes that 'functional testing' refers to testing the device on how well it performs its intended function, as opposed to 'parametric testing' which tests the device against a measurable parameter or specification (e.g., supply current, offset voltage, bias current, etc.).

Also, some test terms you'll encounter actually refer to a testing subroutine or test block embedded inside the whole test program. Sometimes customers opt to perform some of these as stand-alone tests at their end as well, and have to give them their own unique names.

Don't worry - in a few weeks' time you'll no longer find these terms to be confusing. Good luck and keep on posting!

EE

Guest

Hello BAgo lang po.

There are actually plenty of "types" of testing. But if you are asking for the difference of parametric and functionality testing, medyo madali lang.

When you say functionality -- its like a "go" or "no go" thing. Say for example a gun. You may want to test the functionality of a gun. To do that you may want to load it up with bullets, fire a shot at a target, and you know that it is "functional" if it fires and "not funtional" if it doesn't fire. For test, these can be open shorts, output swing, ON/OFF, test. Just by the word, open or short -- you may want to know if the pin is open(no connection) or shorted to some other pins(maybe an assembly problem). If your device fails open and shorts it means that your device is a reject -- it can't be used. WE don't need to know of its other characteristics if it fails opens or shorts test -- it automatically means that it is a reject. AS with a gun, if it doesn't fire, if fails open-shorts test.

Now, let's go to parametric. Going back to the gun as the example, you already know that it can fire. THe next thing perhaps you want to know is how fast can it fire? An automatic rifle may perhaps be functional, but at what rate can it fire? 20 rounds per second? or 3 rounds per second? This is where the "parametric" specs comes in. You can say look, the gun's ok. It is functionally ok. BUt it says in the manual that it can fire 20 rounds in 1 second, can it? This is a parametric spec question. Or you may want to know how many rounds can it fire repeatedly without overheating -- that number can be 100 rounds, 200 rounds, etc. These are the gun's parameters. And to find these things out is in the domain of parametric testing. So for test engineering, parameters may be maximum output voltage of a device, linearity of an ADC/DAC, speed in volts per usecond of a device, a device's propagation time(digital applications), signal to noise ratio, maximum input current, and many more.

Let me know if you have something else to ask.

Just me,

JS

Guest

Hi JS;

There's this waht we call structural test. For complex devices it would be best to test all logic structure rather than the device functionality.

Joined: 01 Sep 2026 Posts: 6

Hi Bago lang po,

Good name! Anyway, Regarding your question for EE, I would like to add some information which I know. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Types of testing. Actually, the types of test depends on the type of product you need to test. Example, OpAmp==> You can test opamp by some DC/AC parameters like VOS,IBias,Gain,PSRR,CMRR,leakage,short circuit and if applicable stress test. But all of the above test are all parametric test. Functionality test for opamp is Swing(VOH/VOL), which you measure the output given input voltage.

For more complex parts like DSP, There are some parametric test that you can do, say, INL,DNL,THD etc. The said test are all parametric, which you measure the performance the DSP, Functionality test for DSP are quite many, ex, Slow functional, by which you feed digital patterns to the part and expect some output at lower clock speed. One is to measure a certain analog signal and expect data at the other end.

In general, There are thousand of test method but little number of test types. Test methods are test that test engineer create or inovate in order to implement the test of a given parameter on a given part.

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