Flying probe

Flying probe testers are a more flexible alternative to bed of nails testers, which use multiple contacts to simultaneously contact the board and which rely on electrical switching to carry out measurements.

In contrast, FICT uses two or more flying probes, which may be moved based on software instruction.

[1] The flying probes are electro-mechanically controlled to access components on printed circuit assemblies (PCAs).

The flying probes also allow easy modification of the test fixture when the PCBA design changes.

A test cycle that may take 30 seconds on such a system, may take an hour with flying probes.