Comparison Of State-Of-The-Art Models For Socket Pin Defect Detection


This article is adapted from a presentation at TestConX, March 5-8, 2023, Mesa, AZ, by Vijayakumar Thangamariappan, Nidhi Agrawal, Jason Kim, Constantinos Xanthopoulos, Ira Leventhal, and Ken Butler, Advantest America Inc., and Joe Xiao, Essai, Advantest Group. Test sockets have a key role to play in the semiconductor test industry. A socket serves as the critical interface between a teste... » read more

Delivering Real-Time Analytics To Semiconductor Test


As defined by Moore’s Law, the semiconductor field has been growing at a steady pace since the 1960s. Concurrent with this progression, semiconductors are becoming more complex, densely integrated, and expensive to produce. While such advancements pose new challenges to semiconductor manufacturing, we can extend Moore’s Law well into the future by reimagining the way we approach the semicon... » read more

Test Strategies In The Era Of Heterogeneous Integration


Moore’s Law, the observation that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years, is critical to advances in computing technology. For decades, fabs have managed to achieve exponential growth in digital capability and transistor density by making transistors smaller and smaller, but we’ve hit the physical limits of these processes. Today, new proces... » read more

MMAF Option Enables Picoampere Measurements


By Yoshiyuki Aoki and Tsunetaka Akutagawa Demand for low-current devices is increasing, as many new sensors are being created for medical, automotive, industrial, and other applications. Chief among the heightened production and test requirements for these low-current devices is the need to achieve picoampere (pA)-class measurements. Sensors’ functionality and efficacy, especially in medic... » read more

Improving Reliability In Chips


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss changes in test that address tracing device quality throughout a product’s lifetime with Tom Katsioulas, CEO at Archon Design Solutions and U.S. Department of Commerce IoT advisory board member; Ming Zhang, vice president of R&D Acceleration at PDF Solutions; and Uzi Baruch, chief strategy officer at proteanTecs. What follows are excerpts of t... » read more

Using Generative AI To Connect Lab To Fab Test


Executive Insight: Thomas Benjamin, CTO at National Instruments, sat down with Semiconductor Engineering to discuss a new way of looking at test, using data as a starting point and generative AI as a bridge between different capabilities. SE: What are the big changes you're seeing and how is that affecting movement of critical data from the lab to the fab? Benjamin: If you walk into any m... » read more

Sustainable Products For A More Sustainable World


Teradyne’s sustainability journey began three decades ago with a focus on minimizing the environmental impact of our buildings and infrastructure, as outlined in our two part blog series (check out part one and part two). This effort also includes a focus on making our products more sustainable. In this blog, learn how Teradyne’s products and efforts are contributing to a more sustainabl... » read more

Semiconductor Industry Is Pulling AI Across A Diversity Of End Uses And Applications


Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of joining a group of industry peers during SEMICON West and the Design Automation Conference in San Francisco for an enlightening panel discussion that we organized titled, “How AI Is Reinventing the Semiconductor Industry Inside and Out.” Moderated by Gartner, I was joined on the panel by senior executives from Advantest, Synopsys and the TinyML Foun... » read more

Reducing Chip Test Costs With AI-Based Pattern Optimization


The old adage “time is money” is highly applicable to the production testing of semiconductor devices. Every second that a wafer or chip is under test means that the next part cannot yet be tested. The slower the test throughput, the more automatic test equipment (ATE) is needed to meet production throughput demands. This is a huge issue for chip producers, since high pin counts, blazingly ... » read more

How Software Can Help Redefine Semiconductor Validation


The rate of technological advancement is increasing faster than ever before. Although the demands for meeting aggressive time-to-market requirements and innovating at warp speed are not new, they are continuing to accelerate. To cut costs without compromising product quality, engineers are now expected to test new designs more rapidly at various stages of development. Even though many organizat... » read more

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