category: Top Stories

category: IoT, Security & Automotive

Why Improving Auto Chip Reliability Is So Hard
By SE Staff - 09 Feb, 2021 - Comments: 1

Tools and ecosystems that focus on reliability and the long-term health of chips are starting to coalesce for the automotive electronics industry. Data gleaned from a chip’s lifecycle — design, verification, test, manufacturing, and in-field operation — will become key to achieving the longevity, reliability, functional safety, and security of newer generations of automobiles. Having s... » read more

Data Issues Mount In Chip Manufacturing
By Anne Meixner - 09 Feb, 2021 - Comments: 2

For yield management systems the old calculation adage, "garbage in/garbage out" still rings true. Aligning and cleaning data remains a dirty business. With the increased value in data in the semiconductor supply chain, there now are essentially two supply chains running in parallel. One involves the physical product being created, while the other includes the data associated with each proce... » read more

Too Much Fab And Test Data, Low Utilization
By Anne Meixner - 12 Jan, 2021 - Comments: 7

Can there be such a thing as too much data in the semiconductor and electronics manufacturing process? The answer is, it depends. An estimated 80% or more of the data collected across the semiconductor supply chain is never looked at, from design to manufacturing and out into the field. While this may be surprising, there are some good reasons: Engineers only look at data necessary to s... » read more

Testing Silicon Photonics In Production
By Bryon Moyer - 12 Jan, 2021 - Comments: 1

As silicon photonics costs come down, the technology is being worked into new applications, from connectivity to AI. But full commercial production requires testing those photonic circuits before shipping them. Photonics testing is only getting started. Volume production is still not happening, and test equipment and techniques are still being developed. What exists today is a blend of exist... » read more

Using Analytics To Reduce Burn-in
By Anne Meixner - 12 Jan, 2021 - Comments: 3

Silicon providers are using adaptive test flows to reduce burn-in costs, one of the many approaches aimed at stemming cost increases at advanced nodes and in advanced packages. No one likes it when their cell phone fails within the first month of ownership. But the problems are much more pressing when the key components in data warehouse servers or automobiles fail. Reliability expectations ... » read more

Testing More To Boost Profits
By Anne Meixner - 30 Dec, 2020 - Comments: 0

Not all chips measure up to spec, but as more data becomes available and the cost of these devices continues to rise, there is increasing momentum to salvage and re-purpose chips for other applications and markets. Performance-based binning is as old as color-banded resistors, but the practice is spreading — even for the most advanced nodes and packages. Over the last three decades, engine... » read more

Digital Test Bulks Up – Or Down
By Bryon Moyer - 08 Dec, 2020 - Comments: 2

Large digital integrated circuits are becoming harder to test in a time- and cost-efficient manner. AI chips, in particular, have tiled architectures that are putting pressure on older testing strategies due to the volume of test vectors required. In some cases, these chips are so large that they exceed reticle size, requiring them to be stitched together. New testing efficiencies are needed... » read more

Test Engineers In Very Short Supply
By SE Staff - 08 Dec, 2020 - Comments: 2

Semiconductor design, verification, manufacturing, and test requires an army of engineers, with each playing a special role. But increasingly, these disciplines also require additional training to be able to understand the context around their jobs, and that is making it harder to fill different positions at a time when the chip industry already is severely short-staffed. This is particularl... » read more

Infrastructure Impacts Data Analytics
By Anne Meixner - 08 Dec, 2020 - Comments: 2

Semiconductor data analytics relies upon timely, error-free data from the manufacturing processes, but the IT infrastructure investment and engineering effort needed to deliver that data is, expensive, enormous, and still growing. The volume of data has ballooned at all points of data generation as equipment makers add more sensors into their tools, and as monitors are embedded into the chip... » read more

Adaptive Test Gains Ground
By Anne Meixner - 10 Nov, 2020 - Comments: 0

Not all devices get tested the same way anymore, and that’s a good thing. Quality, test costs, and yield have motivated product engineers to adopt test processes that fall under the umbrella of adaptive test, which uses test data to modify a subsequent test process. But to execute such techniques requires logistics that support analysis of data, as well as enabling changes to a test based ... » read more

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