Function Testing

If you talk about the most initial step in the testing of a PCB or a circuit, functional testing is the initial step of testing procedure. This is one of the most efficient methods of testing a fully fabricated PCB, which is basically an extension of in circuit testing, which is aimed at countering defects which that are evident at the time of fabrication.

Functional Testing Procedure

The procedure followed in functional testing of any given system is that the entire system is considered as a whole and is tested for having the desired functional behavior. The idea which underlies any functional test procedure is to test the quality of the functional modules of an entire system. Such a functional test makes sure that the overall system behavior is in accordance with the laid out specifications and expected set of outputs.

Functional testing is used in the hardware and production industry. Before any functional testing procedure is carried out, a set of functional test cases are formulated. These test cases are basically a set of inputs, arranged in a fashion that depicts the entire behavioral pattern of the system. These test cases are formulated either by the test designer or product engineer. This is followed by the creation of acceptance test cards by a host of different approaches.

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These acceptance test suits are next run on the system to get a set of outputs. These outputs are compiled along with the inputs given into various test cases. These test cases are then compared to the expected set of outputs for a given set of inputs. If there is no mismatch between the two, the test case is said to be have passed and the system is marked as functionally compliant. Passing of a functional testing routine thus signifies the system’s behavior has been found to be functionally compliant and the expected set of behavioral parameters were in complete coherence with the actual behavioral patterns observed.

Functional testing procedures have evolved from the very fundamental and rudimentary system testing procedures and this is the reason why there is a great deal of similarity between the two testing procedures.

Based on the procedure followed during functional testing, it is divided into the following different types:

• Stress testing
• Sanity testing
• Regression testing
• Reliability testing

Article published February 1st, 2010
Versatyle.com – Functional Testing