Quickly Develop Test Scripts with the New Keithley TSP™︎ Toolkit Beta

This blog first appeared on the Tektronix website.

Semiconductor manufacturers, validation engineers and reliability engineers can now get faster test script development while automating Keithley test instruments such as SMUs, DAQs or DMMs by downloading the Keithley TSP Toolkit Beta, the new TSP (Test Script Processor) script development environment, which takes the form of a Visual Studio Code extension. In this blog, we’ll explore TSP technology and how the Keithley TSP Toolkit can help you quickly and easily develop test scripts.

What is Test Script Processor or TSP Technology?

Test Script Processor, or TSP, technology is both an instrument automation command set and programming language. TSP-enabled instruments, like Keithley SMUs, DAQs, and DMMs, contain an embedded scripting engine that can execute basic programming functionality and instrument control commands.

You can initiate tests with a single TSP script call from the PC, or run the test on the instrument automatically, without the PC. This drastically reduces test time compared to traditional testing methods using SCPI commands that require individual commands to be sent from the PC to the instrument.

TSP scripts also offer the most flexibility, allowing you to create a wholly custom test system with benefits such as high-speed triggering, parallel testing and increased throughput.

A parallel test instrument configuration using TSP-Link technology.

Quickly and Easily Develop Test Scripts with TSP Toolkit

The Keithley TSP Toolkit is an updated script development environment that includes all the functionality and instrument support of Test Script Builder (TSB) plus many quality-of-life features that improve the development experience.

TSP Toolkit will feature the modern UI of the Visual Studio Code IDE, complete with syntax-highlighting and the increased readability it affords, along with the convenience of the many extensions available on the VSCode marketplace.

Programmers, integrators and those with established automated test frameworks will appreciate having access to other scripting languages like Python in the same environment that they use to write TSP scripts. The Keithley TSP Toolkit extension will also feature autocompletion alongside in-line and hover help, reducing pesky mistakes from copy/pasting TSP commands improperly and eliminating the need to manually parse through dense reference manuals to confirm proper command usage and syntax.

Keithley TSP Toolkit extension command autocomplete feature in action.

Keithley TSP Toolkit command hover help feature in use.

While the Keithley TSP Toolkit extension is open source and is currently in development, a Beta version has been made available on the Visual Studio Code marketplace. The TSP Toolkit Beta can be used to develop automation scripts for all TSP-enabled Keithley instruments.

Keithley TSP-enabled instruments.

The TSP Toolkit Beta is available as a VSCode extension and can be used to develop TSP scripts alongside your other favorite VSCode extensions, such as those for Python, C# and many others.  Download the TSP Toolkit Beta for an improved development experience.