Formalizing Accommodation of Transitory Path Intrinsic Characteristics

Today’s resource connection technologies, mechanisms, and provisioning implemented in test station architectures are deficient in commonality that offers transparency in application functionality aspects. The breadth of path determination hardware and controlling software available for incorporation in test stations is often unique, proprietary, and available only through sole suppliers. Although the architectural flexibility obtained using these various manifestations can provide robust functionality, it also creates barriers when inevitable obsolescence is confronted. Exacerbating the hardware commonality problems is a distinct lack of software models, technologies, or abstractions enabled to alleviate incompatibilities encountered when approaching obsolescence mitigation. Another observation concerning path connection software found in the majority, if not all, automatic test equipment is that it generalizes connections as simply committing connection or releasing connection commitment. Current path connection software technologies do not demand any technical specification of the connection characteristics. Dealing with connection facilities in this oversimplified manner essentially demands applications adhering to it imply knowledge of how to use facilities needed without stating what is needed. Predictably when obsolescence occurs the applications must be altered to accommodate the replacement facility’s interaction methodologies. This proposal addresses feasibility of alleviating these and other connection issues incurred in existing test station implementations.