Practical Ways To Reduce Test Time


If someone said that paper never refused ink, they could have said the same about test programs and tests. Early on in my career as a test development engineer, I commented out all tests except the key test for the new product I was working on. This allowed me to isolate the test and fix its repeatability. The next pre-production run finished much earlier than I expected and I was impressed ... » read more

Big Shifts In Big Data


The big data market is in a state of upheaval as companies begin shifting their data strategies from "nothing" or "everything" in the cloud to a strategic mix, squeezing out middle-market players and changing what gets shared, how that data is used, and how best to secure it. This has broad implications for the whole semiconductor supply chain, because in many cases it paves the way for ... » read more

Deprocessing And SEM For Semiconductor Failure Analysis


A typical semiconductor is fabricated from metal and barrier layers separated by passivation layers. A further glassivation and/or polyimide layer on top of these provides environmental and mechanical protection. Optical microscopes By using optical microscopy, the semiconductor die can be inspected for failure modes such as top-down visible crack degradation, melt-down of metal conductors,... » read more

Manufacturing ADAS Cameras Calls For Analytics


Automotive camera design and manufacturing is one of the most difficult undertakings in hardware. Not only do you need to deal with the usual difficulties of high performance mechanical and electrical designs, but now highly specialized and sensitive optics are added into the equation. Complicating factors is that you won’t know how good the product is until it’s been completely assembled, ... » read more

5G OTA Test Not Ready For Production


5G is poised to dominate the wireless world, but over-the-air (OTA) testing of 5G beamforming antennas is still not ready for volume production. Beamforming is a critical element in the millimeter wave version of 5G, because of the limitations of ultra-high-frequency signals. Unlike 4G and its predecessors, millimeter wave technology will not penetrate objects, so signals need to be directed... » read more

Highlights From The Automotive Testing Expo 2019


Thousands of automotive engineers and enthusiasts visited the Automotive Testing Expo in Stuttgart, Germany, in May to see nearly 500 companies show off their latest technologies to test features such as active safety, vehicle electrification, and connectivity, among others. This blog features highlights of the expo and the Autonomous Vehicle Test and Development Symposium held in conjunction w... » read more

Meeting ISO 26262 Requirements Using Tessent IC Test Solutions


As the industry moves towards greater automation in vehicles, suppliers of the ICs used to drive the automotive electronic systems are rapidly adopting solutions to meet ISO 26262 requirements. The Tessent family of IC test products offers the highest defect coverage, in-system non-destructive memory test, hybrid ATPG/Logic BIST, and analog test coverage measurement. These technologies add up t... » read more

Smart Manufacturing Solutions: Build or Buy?


Enterprise smart manufacturing platforms have become an important part of the manufacturing ecosystem, especially in domains such as semiconductors and electronics. McKinsey & Company estimates, for example, that the quantity of process, product, and machine data collected on a daily basis in a typical fab quickly exceeds terabytes. If you add to this in-line and end-of-line inspection as w... » read more

SEM Analysis Reveals Real Cause Of Chip Failure


When it comes to ASIC design, DELTA’s motto is “first time right”. When the first wafers from the wafer fab showed severe electrical malfunction, we were extremely frustrated. To investigate the failure, the design team started electrical characterization of prototypes. Overall, a short between power and ground was observed and furthermore RF inputs exhibited strange VI characteristics. T... » read more

Advanced Features Of High Speed Digital I/O Devices: Double Data Rate


As clock speeds and data rates continue to increase, designers of digital integrated circuits are creating new ways to maximize the rate of data being sent into and out of digital devices. One such method is known as double data rate (DDR). With single data rate (SDR) devices, data is latched on either the rising or falling edges of the sample clock. A DDR device latches data on both the rising... » read more

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