tag: ATPG

Testing The Stack: DFT Is Ready For 3D Devices
By Martin Keim - 08 Sep, 2022 - Comments: 0

When existing advanced 2D designs already push the limits of design-for-test (DFT) tools, what hope do developers have of managing DFT for 3D devices? Can anyone afford the tool run time, on-chip area demand, pattern count, and test time? The answer, from an array of experts, is yes, there is a path to a scalable, affordable, and comprehensive DFT solution for 3D ICs. Well-covered strategies... » read more

Auto Chipmakers Dig Down To 10ppb
By Anne Meixner - 08 Mar, 2022 - Comments: 0

How do engineers deliver 10 defective parts per billion (Dppb) to auto makers if they only screen 1 million parts per year? Answer: By comprehending failure mechanisms and proactively screening for them. Modern automobiles contain nearly 1,000 ICs that must perform over the vehicle’s life (15 years). This drives quality expectations ever higher. While 10 Dppm used to be a solid benchmark, ... » read more

Preparing For Test Early In The Design Flow
By Ann Mutschler - 02 Mar, 2022 - Comments: 0

Until very recently, semiconductor design, verification, and test were separate domains. Those domains have since begun to merge, driven by rising demand for reliability, shorter market windows, and increasingly complex chip architectures. In the past, products were designed from a functional perspective, and designers were not concerned about what the physical implementation of the product ... » read more

Total Critical Area For Optimizing Test Patterns
By Ed Sperling - 19 Oct, 2021 - Comments: 0

Increasing complexity at advanced nodes makes it much harder to locate defects and latent defects because there is more surface area to cover and much less space between the various components in a leading-edge chip design. Ron Press, technology enablement director at Siemens Digital Industries Software, talks about why it’s so important to predict where defects are most likely to occur in th... » read more

Power-Aware Test: Addressing Power Challenges In DFT And Test
By Rahul Singhal - 10 Aug, 2021 - Comments: 0

Integrated circuit (IC) sizes continue to grow as they meet the compute requirements of cutting-edge applications such as artificial intelligence (AI), autonomous driving, and data centers. As design sizes increase, the total power consumption of the chip also increases. While process node scaling reduces a transistor’s size and its operating-voltage, power scaling has not kept up with the si... » read more

Signal Connectivity Checks Are Not Just For Design-For-Test Teams
By Pawini Mahajan - 08 Jun, 2021 - Comments: 0

By Pawini Mahajan and Raja Koneru The complexity with system-on-chip (SoC) design continues to grow, creating greater complexity of the corresponding design-for-test (DFT) logic required for manufacturing tests. Design teams are challenged not only by high gate counts and the array of internally developed and third-party IP integrated into their designs: the need to achieve high-quality manu... » read more

Merging Verification And Test
By Brian Bailey - 22 Apr, 2021 - Comments: 0

While the disciplines of functional verification and test serve different purposes, their histories were once closely intertwined. Recent safety and security monitoring requirements coupled with capabilities being embedded into devices is bringing them closer together again, but can they successfully cooperate to bring about improvements in both? Getting there may be difficult. Three phases ... » 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

Using Critical Area To Boost Automotive IC Test Quality
By Ron Press - 03 Sep, 2020 - Comments: 0

To compete in the fast-growing market for automotive ICs, semiconductor companies need to address new challenges across the entire design flow. To meet the ISO 26262 goal of zero defective parts per million (DPPM), DFT engineers have embraced new test pattern types, including cell-aware, interconnect, and inter-cell bridge (cell neighborhood). But the traditional methods of choosing the types o... » read more

Critical Area-Based Test Pattern Optimization For High-Quality Test
By Mentor, a Siemens Business - 02 Sep, 2020 - Comments: 0

Among the challenges for DFT engineers is how to set a target metric for ATPG and how to choose the best set of patterns. Traditional coverage targets based on the number of faults detected doesn’t consider the likelihood of one fault occurring compared to another. Tessent developed total critical area ATPG technology that enables the sorting and ordering of patterns based on their likelihood... » read more

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