Recent developments in the field of integrated transducers have shown a clear migration towards compact systems rather than just separate components. System-on-Chips (SoCs) embedding sensors and actuators (or MEMS, Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems), regardless of their energy domain, will soon become a reality. The quality of these complex systems can be significantly degraded by embedding MEMS components for which reliability models are usually not well known. Much research is still required to bring MEMS design and test in line with microelectronics state-of-the-art. This work provides an in-depth view of the work being developed in our Laboratory on microsystem testing, from the study of new micromachining defects and failure mechanisms to the development and evaluation of suitable self-test strategies. Since MEMS are essentially analog devices, we are approaching their test as an extension of the field of analog and mixed-signal electronic testing. Similarities between the present development of MEMS testing and that of Microelecronics testing in the last decades are pointed out.