The Specialty Device Surge, Part 1: Wafer Size Transitions Are Powering The Future Of Specialty Devices And Bringing New Challenges
By Christopher Haire - 10 Mar, 2026 - Comments: 0

Specialty devices are the unsung heroes of modern life. For many in the semiconductor industry today, the spotlight is on the SiC and GaN power devices used in automotive, green energy, fast-charge consumer electronics (CE), and high-performance computing (HPC) applications (Figures 1 and 2). However, specialty devices are more than just power devices. They are a broad class of semiconductor... » read more

Analog Scan: Unlocking A New Era In Mixed-Signal Test
By Vladimir Zivkovic - 10 Mar, 2026 - Comments: 0

Anyone involved in IC product sign-off that includes a mixed signal design portion knows that developing robust tests for these intricate designs has historically been a significant bottleneck, no matter the application. It's a hurdle many of us have faced, leading to extended development times, high costs, and sometimes an unsettling uncertainty about the true quality of our tests. Traditio... » read more

Maximize Your Revenue With High-Speed Test Performance Optimization
By Jesse Ko - 10 Mar, 2026 - Comments: 0

In today’s competitive semiconductor market, revenue growth is often associated with design innovation, process advancements, or packaging breakthroughs. However, a powerful and frequently overlooked revenue lever lies much closer to production: high-speed test performance optimization. Test variability—particularly at high frequencies—can significantly influence product binning, yield... » read more

Enabling Seamless Monitoring, Test, And Repair In Multi-Die Designs
By Yervant Zorian - 10 Mar, 2026 - Comments: 0

By Yervant Zorian and Sandeep Kumar Goel Anyone who follows the semiconductor industry knows that the accelerating performance, scale and energy efficiency demands of the AI revolution are outpacing the advances achievable by simply pushing the chip performance of monolithic, single-die designs. Multi-die design using 2.5D and 3D technologies has emerged as a necessity to keep the pace of in... » read more

The Petabyte Problem: How AI Is Finally Making Semiconductor Manufacturing Data Actionable
By Christophe Begue - 10 Mar, 2026 - Comments: 1

The semiconductor industry has quietly accumulated one of the most complex data challenges in modern manufacturing, and it has largely been losing the battle to solve it. Modern fabs now generate gigabytes of data per chip across probe, assembly, and test operations. Test programs routinely exceed one million test items. The largest enterprise deployments have crossed the multi-petabyte thre... » read more

Singulated Die Test Ensures Stacked Die Quality As Power Density Rises
By Brent Bullock - 10 Mar, 2026 - Comments: 0

The accelerating rate at which the industry adopts new process nodes is posing critical test challenges. Shrinking geometries combined with increased design complexity with respect to metrics such as gates per square micrometer, plus higher operating frequencies, are leading to ever higher levels of power density. The resulting device thermal excursions are driving the need for singulated die t... » read more

Ensuring AI Reliability: Mitigating OCP’s Silent Data Corruption Risks
By Noam Brousard - 10 Mar, 2026 - Comments: 0

Silent Data Corruption (SDC) is an industry challenge affecting data centers worldwide with increasing frequency. This phenomenon stems from untraceable hardware failures that make detection notoriously difficult. SDCs don’t leave any record in system logs or trigger exception mechanisms. The corrupted data they produce can propagate unnoticed, causing cascading failures that often demand ext... » read more

Detecting Chemical Variability At Advanced Nodes
By Gregory Haley - 10 Mar, 2026 - Comments: 2

Key Takeaways Yield loss is increasingly driven by molecular variability in thin films, interfaces, and contamination rather than visible defects. Reliability issues often appear first as parametric drift or margin erosion under workload and thermal stress. Detection requires correlating molecular metrology, embedded electrical telemetry, and AI-driven wafer inspection. As s... » read more

CD Step Application in Edge Air Layer Structure Measurement for Bulk Acoustic Resonator
By Onto Innovation - 10 Mar, 2026 - Comments: 0

A vital component of modern communication systems, bulk acoustic wave resonators (BAW) function as filters, oscillators, and sensors. In a BAW device, the acoustic waves are confined within a specific region to achieve efficient resonance. The air ring structure, including the edge air layer structure, prevents acoustic energy from leaking. However, measuring the critical dimensions (CD) of edg... » read more

How AI Is Changing Computing And Why Testing Is Critical
By Jeorge Hurtarte - 10 Mar, 2026 - Comments: 0

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming industries, enhancing our daily lives, and improving efficiency and decision-making, but its need for compute processing power is growing at an astonishing rate, doubling every three months (Figure 1). To maintain this pace, the semiconductor industry is moving beyond traditional chip development – it has entered the era of heterogeneous chiplets i... » read more

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