Why Analog And Mixed-Signal Chips Resist Adaptive Test


Key Takeaways Analog and mixed-signal test remains heavily specification-based because the measurements do not always produce a single expected result. The absence of objective coverage metrics has historically encouraged conservative test flows, which IEEE 2427-2025 begins to address. Separating device behavior from test-path variation is a prerequisite for any adaptive flow—and h... » read more

Moving Defect Detection And Classification To The Edge


The number of defects detected through inspection is exploding at each new process node. There are now millions of defects being identified on each wafer, but only a fraction of those can cause problems. Prasad Bachiraju, senior director of business development at Onto Innovation, talks about the different types of images being captured using different illumination modes at different touch poin... » read more

Impact of Band-to-Band Tunneling in the CTL of V-NAND Flash Memory (U. of Seoul, Samsung)


A new technical paper, "Impact of Band-to-Band Tunneling in the Charge Trap Layer of NAND Flash Memory," was published by researchers from University of Seoul and Samsung Electronics. Abstract "This article investigates the impact of band-to-band tunneling (BTBT) occurring in the charge trap layer (CTL) of vertical NAND (V−NAND) flash memory under excessive erasure conditions and aggres... » read more

When Semiconductor Materials Misbehave


Key Takeaways Material behavior in production depends on the process context that no development environment can fully replicate. In advanced packaging, the interactions that cross domain boundaries are increasingly where failures originate. The most accurate materials data is also the most commercially sensitive, leaving simulation models calibrated against generic inputs rather tha... » read more

System-in-Package Challenges


Systems companies and leading-edge chipmakers are pushing past reticle limits with chiplet-based designs, often breaking compute-intensive functions into different chiplets and coupling those with other chiplets that may have been developed by different teams and at different process nodes. This is harder than it sounds, and results can vary widely even under the best circumstances. Nir Sever, ... » read more

Silent Data Corruption: A Major Reliability Challenge in Large-Scale LLM Training (TU Berlin)


A new technical paper, "Exploring Silent Data Corruption as a Reliability Challenge in LLM Training," was published by researchers at Technische Universitat Berlin. Abstract "As Large Language Models (LLMs) scale in size and complexity, the consequences of failures during training become increasingly severe. A major challenge arises from Silent Data Corruption (SDC): hardware-induced faults... » read more

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

What’s Failing At The Interface


Key Takeaways The interface is where failures in advanced packaging become visible, but it's increasingly not where they originate. Weak interfaces often don't fail at time zero, but they do degrade due to parametric drift and margin erosion that binary test screens miss entirely. The temporary test interconnect is the largest variable in the measurement chain and must be controlled ... » read more

FeFETs With Laminated Gate Stacks For Radiation Resilience in Vertical NAND (Georgia Tech)


A new technical paper, "Enabling Radiation Hardness in Solid-State NAND Storage Utilizing a Laminated Ferroelectric Stack," was published by researchers at Georgia Tech. Abstract "NAND flash forms the core of modern solid-state storage, which is critical for data-intensive AI applications, yet charge-trap NAND suffers rapid threshold-voltage (Vth) degradation under ionizing radiation, causi... » read more

Digital Twins: The Cloud’s The Limit


Key Takeaways Digital twins are gaining traction as a way of testing different options at every step of the design-through-manufacturing flow. AI can be used to glue together disparate data types in multi-physics simulations. The promise of digital twins is huge, but multiple challenges need to be solved before it can live up to its potential. Digital twin technology is draw... » read more

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