Data Analytics For The Chiplet Era


This article is based on a paper presented at SEMICON Japan 2022. Moore’s Law has provided the semiconductor industry’s marching orders for device advancement over the past five decades. Chipmakers were successful in continually finding ways to shrink the transistor, which enabled fitting more circuits into a smaller space while keeping costs down. Today, however, Moore’s Law is slowin... » read more

Preventing Process Excursion With AI And Yield Management Software


Process excursion, or any deviation in a certain process, significantly impacts the cost of semiconductor manufacturing process and product yield. During production, process excursion can be detected early during in-line inspections. However, in some cases, excursion isn’t detected until later in the production process such as during wafer testing in the probing area after production. Apar... » read more

The Data Revolution Of Semiconductor Production


During our insightful panel discussion on “The Data Revolution of Semiconductor Production – How Advancements in Technology Unlock New Insights,” we covered several topics including machine learning, edge computing and cloud-based data management. We discussed questions including: Are we creating the right data and doing enough with it? What needs to be done to make data actionable? Ho... » read more

Silicon Lifecycle Management Advances With Unified Analytics


In a typical day in the life of a product engineer, they have gone through the requisite wafer sort testing in manufacturing with the next step to assemble the resultant good die into their respective packages. While performing a series of parametric tests during final test, yield issues are encountered and the process of finding the source of the issues begins. Luckily, with access to a good d... » read more

What Is Achievable With A Yield Management System?


Semiconductor manufacturers are under constant pressure to increase yields and cut costs. Yield Management Systems (YMS) are designed specifically to meet the needs of semiconductor manufacturers, enabling them to investigate yield excursions, streamline the manufacturing processes, optimize the supply chain, analyze tools and eliminate workplace inefficiencies. In terms of data challenges... » read more

Using Machine Learning To Increase Yield And Lower Packaging Costs


Packaging is becoming more and more challenging and costly. Whether the reason is substrate shortages or the increased complexity of packages themselves, outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) houses have to spend more money, more time and more resources on assembly and testing. As such, one of the more important challenges facing OSATs today is managing die that pass testing at the ... » read more

Power-Aware Test: Beyond Low-Power Test


By Rahul Singhal and Likith Kumar Manchukonda Power consumption is one of the key considerations when designing today’s semiconductor chips and systems. Over the years, the constant need for higher performance and more functions from the chips has been driving the continuous requirement for higher transistor density. The process node scaling makes this possible by reducing transistor sizes... » read more

Device Validation: The Ultimate Test Frontier


This article is a condensed version of an article that appeared in the November/December 2022 issue of Chip Scale Review. Adapted with permission. Read the original article at https://chipscalereview.com/wp-content/uploads/flipbook/30/book.html, p. 26. In the early days of space exploration, spacecraft were manned by small teams of astronauts, most of whom were experienced test pilots who ... » read more

Image Sensors Are Everywhere And The Implications For Test Are Significant


In February of 2021, the NASA Perseverance rover actively navigated a fully-autonomous entry and descent to successfully land in the Jezero Crater on Mars, using a brand-new navigational system developed by NASA – Terrain-Relative Navigation. The delay between mission control and the rover was about 11 minutes so a human-guided remote landing was not possible. Previous missions had to rely o... » read more

Integrating Siloed Data In Semiconductor Manufacturing


In semiconductor manufacturing, huge amounts of data are generated and collected at every step in multiple production areas, with data coming from wafer fab, probe/testing, assembly, and final test. That data is usually stored separately in its respective manufacturing department, isolated from other departments. In order to analyze the production data and make better decisions, yield an... » read more

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