US Patent 7680619 Parallel test architecture

A measurement system for testing a DUT includes a plurality of procedures for performing test functions, each procedure having a phase variable; a task queue where the procedures are entered in the task queue with a sign-up value of the phase variable; and a multiphase task executor that arranges the procedures in the queue in response to the sign-up value. The executor changes the phase variable to an execution value and executes the procedures in the task queue after the phase variable has the execution value.