Using Python to Characterize Semicondutors

For serveral years I have been working on characterizing semicondcutors using equipment such as Oscilloscopes, Spectrum Analyzers, RF Sources and whole assortment of measurement equipment. I quickly noticed definate patterns assoicated with the test that I was performing making them ideal for automation. In addition, many of the standards such as PCIe, SRIO, Xaui and SGMII include very time intensive requirements all needing to be verifed through test. For example a simple receive tolerance test can take litterally days to complete depending on the required confidence level and number of features that a particular transmiter, receiver pair offer. In all of my testing I have found that Python is can be used to make this test simpler. In the following blog I hope to share some of the code and tricks that I have used to do this type of testing.