Enhancing Silicon Reliability With In-System Test And SLM Data


Innovation in semiconductor development and manufacturing shows no signs of slowing down. Ever-larger chips at ever-smaller geometries create new challenges all the time. At the same time, competitive pressures are shrinking time to market (TTM) and putting enormous pressure on project teams. Furthermore, the wide use of electronics in safety-critical applications demands better reliability, av... » read more

Are You Using Structural Patterns In An SLT Environment?


Extending the in‑field life of your silicon is essential for long‑term success and for staying ahead of your competitors in today’s rapidly evolving digital world of data centers, automotive and cellular chipsets, and AI applications. For those reasons, it’s increasingly important to test your silicon in a System Level Test (SLT) environment. Testing in an SLT environment offers many be... » read more

In-System/In-Field Testing Using High-Quality Deterministic Test Patterns


The amount of electronic content in passenger cars is growing rapidly, primarily due to the integration of advanced safety features. The shift towards fully autonomous vehicles, which must comply with stringent safety standards, will further increase the number of electronic components required. Testing efforts must be of exceptional quality. The target test time is often limited to less than 1... » read more

Can Your ATPG Do This? Cut Defects Escaping Detection With ML


Chipmakers worldwide consider Automatic Test Pattern Generation (ATPG) their go-to method for achieving high test coverage in production. ATPG generates test patterns designed to detect faults in the silicon and ensures they are applied effectively using the chip’s Design-for-Test (DFT) infrastructure. This combination enhances fault detection while optimizing test efficiency. These patter... » read more

Better ATPG To Minimize Chip Test Time And Cost


As chips get ever bigger and more complex, the electronic design automation (EDA) industry must innovate constantly to keep up. Engineers expect every new generation of silicon to be modeled, simulated, laid out, and checked in about the same time with the same effort, despite the growth in die size and density. One area of particular focus is manufacturing test. Any effort expended to reduce t... » read more

Unlocking The Value Of Yield


Have you stopped to consider the impact of yield on your overall product cost? Of course you did, when you considered your yield targets and set your product goals. But is it good enough to stop once the goals are achieved, or should you find ways to drive additional value into your organization once production has begun? What is the value of a 1% improvement in product yield? The short answer ... » read more

Power-Aware Test Vector Porting For Production ATE


Power management in contemporary system-on-chip (SoC) designs is almost unimaginably complex. Processors and other chip cores turn on and off as needed. Advanced features such as dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS) can adjust to changing conditions and incrementally adjust power and performance on the fly. Power management starts from the lowest hardware level of transistor structures ... » read more

Power-Aware Revolution In Automated Test For ICs


As semiconductor devices advance in complexity and sensitivity to power fluctuations, the integration of power-aware automatic test pattern generation (ATPG) is becoming indispensable for yield and the overall functionality of a chip. Unlike traditional ATPG, which generates test patterns solely to ensure device functionality, power-aware ATPG takes it a step further by meticulously consider... » read more

Supporting Multiple Time Domains In SoC Production Test


Complex system-on-chip (SoC) devices make every stage of the development flow harder, and the challenges continue even after the silicon is fabricated. Automatic test equipment (ATE) screening for defective wafers and assembled chips is always challenging. Production test engineers constantly struggle to minimize expensive test pattern memory, test each wafer or chip as quickly as possible, and... » read more

New Type Of Hardware Trojans Based On Logic Locking


A technical paper titled “Logic Locking based Trojans: A Friend Turns Foe” was published by researchers at University of Maryland and University of Florida. Abstract: "Logic locking and hardware Trojans are two fields in hardware security that have been mostly developed independently from each other. In this paper, we identify the relationship between these two fields. We find that a com... » read more

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