Conformance testing or type testing is testing to determine whether a product or system meets some specified standard that has been developed for efficiency or interoperability.
To aid in this, many test procedures and test setups have been developed, either by the standard's maintainers or external organizations, specifically for testing conformance to standards.
Conformance testing is often performed by external organizations, which is sometimes the standards body itself, to give greater guarantees of compliance. Products tested in such a manner are then advertised as being certified by that external organization as complying with the standard.
Service providers, equipment manufacturers, and equipment suppliers rely on this data to ensure Quality of Service (QoS) through this conformance process.
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In software testing, Compilers, for instance, are extensively tested to determine whether they meet the recognized standard for that language. It is a process of testing an implemented product to confirm that it is based on its specified standards.
In electronic engineering and electrical engineering, some countries and business environments (such as telecommunication companies) require that an electronic product meet certain requirements before they can be sold. Standards for telecommunication products written by standards organizations such as ANSI, the FCC, and IEC, etc., have certain criteria that a product must meet before compliance is recognized. In countries such as Japan, China, Korea, and some parts of Europe, products cannot be sold unless they are known to meet those requirements specified in the standards. Usually, manufacturers set their own requirements to ensure product quality, sometimes with levels much higher than what the governing bodies require. Compliance is realized after a product passes a series of tests without occurring some specified mode of failure. Failure levels are usually set depending on what environment the product will be sold in. For instance, test on a product for used in an industrial environment will not be as stringent as a product used in a residential area. A failure can include data corruption, loss of communication, and irregular behavior.
There are three main types of compliance test for electronic devices, emissions tests, immunity tests, and safety tests. Emissions tests ensure that a product will not emit harmful interference by electromagnetic radiation and/or electrical signals in communication and power lines. Immunity tests ensure that a product is immune to common electrical signals and Electromagnetic interference (EMI) that will be found in its operating environment, such as electromagnetic radiation from a local radio station or interference from nearby products. Safety tests ensure that a product will not create a safety risk from situations such as a failed or shorted power supply, blocked cooling vent, and powerline voltage spikes and dips.
In protocol testing, TTCN-3 has been used successfully to deploy a number of test systems, including protocol conformance testers for SIP, WiMAX, and DSRC.