tag: ATE

Making Test Transparent With Better Data
By Susan Rambo - 07 Sep, 2021 - Comments: 0

Data is critical for a variety of processes inside the fab. The challenge is getting enough consistent data from different equipment and then plugging it back into the design, manufacturing, and test flows to quickly improve the process and uncover hard-to-find defective die. Progress is being made. The inspection and test industry is on the cusp of having more dynamic ways to access the dat... » read more

Designing Chips For Test Data
By Ed Sperling - 10 Aug, 2021 - Comments: 0

Collecting data to determine the health of a chip throughout its lifecycle is becoming necessary as chips are used in more critical applications, but being able to access that data isn't always so simple. It requires moving signals through a complex, sometimes unpredictable, and often hostile environment, which is a daunting challenge under the best of conditions. There is a growing sense of... » read more

5G Chips Add Test Challenges
By Bryon Moyer - 06 Jul, 2021 - Comments: 1

The advent of chips supporting millimeter-wave (mmWave) 5G signals is creating a new set of design and testing challenges. Effects that could be ignored at lower frequencies are now important. Performing high-volume test of RF chips will require much more from automated test equipment (ATE) than is required for chips operating below 6 GHz. “MmWave design is a pretty old thing,” said Y... » read more

Cleaning Up During IC Test
By Anne Meixner - 06 Jul, 2021 - Comments: 2

Test is a dirty business. It can contaminate a unit or wafer, or the test hardware, which in turn can cause problems in the field. While this has not gone unnoticed, particularly as costs rise due to increasing pin and ball density, and as more chips are bundled together in a package, the cost of dirt continues to be a focus. Cleaning recipes for test interface boards are changing, and analy... » read more

Development Of High Voltage General-Purpose Pin-Electronics
By Advantest - 06 Jul, 2021 - Comments: 0

Currently, there is a demand in Automated Test Equipment (ATE) to test both high-speed/low-voltage amplitude devices manufactured in advanced processes and low-speed / high-voltage amplitude devices manufactured in legacy processes by a pin-electronics equipment. However, it is difficult to achieve both the operating speed over than 1Gbps and the wide I/O range over than 10Vpp, due to the trade... » read more

Digging Much Deeper With Unit Retest
By Anne Meixner - 08 Jun, 2021 - Comments: 0

Keeping test costs flat in the face of product complexity continues to challenge both product and test engineers. Increased data collection at package-level test and the ability to respond to it in a never-before level of detail has prompted device makers and assembly and test houses to tighten up their retest processes. Test metrology, socket contamination, and mechanical alignment have alw... » read more

Managing Wafer Retest
By Anne Meixner - 19 May, 2021 - Comments: 1

Every wafer test touch-down requires a balance between a good electrical contact and preventing damage to the wafer and probe card. Done wrong, it can ruin a wafer and the customized probe card and result in poor yield, as well as failures in the field. Achieving this balance requires good wafer probing process procedures as well as monitoring of the resulting process parameters, much of it ... » read more

Testing AiP Modules In High-Volume Production
By Jose Moreira - 11 May, 2021 - Comments: 0

Far-field and radiating near-field are two options for high-volume over-the-air (OTA) testing of antenna-in-package (AiP) modules with automated test equipment (ATE) [1]. In this article, we define an AiP device under test (DUT) and examine the measurement results from both methods. Creating an AiP evaluation vehicle Proper evaluation of an ATE OTA measurement setup requires an AiP module. Us... » read more

Testing Analog Circuits Becoming More Difficult
By Susan Rambo - 11 May, 2021 - Comments: 1

Foundries and packaging houses are wrestling how to control heat in the testing phase, particularly as devices continue to shrink and as thermally sensitive analog circuits are added into SoCs and advanced packages to support everything from RF to AI. The overriding problem is that heat can damage chips or devices under test. That's certainly true for digital chips developed at advanced node... » read more

Chasing Test Escapes In IC Manufacturing
By Anne Meixner - 11 May, 2021 - Comments: 0

The number of bad chips that slip through testing and end up in the field can be significantly reduced before those devices ever leave the fab, but the cost of developing the necessary tests and analyzing the data has sharply limited adoption. Determining an acceptable test escape metric for an IC is essential to improving the yield-to-quality ratio in chip manufacturing, but what exactly is... » read more

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