Cleaning Data For Final Test


John O’Donnell, CEO of yieldHUB, talks about why data integrity is so critical for final test, what can cause it to be less-than-perfect, what’s needed to improve the quality of that data, and how that impacts the overall yield in a fab. » read more

Sensors, Data And Machine Learning


Strategies for building reliability into chips and systems are beginning to shift as more sensors are added into these devices and machine learning is applied to that data. In the past, system monitoring relied heavily on MEMS devices for things like acceleration, temperature and positioning (gyroscopes). While those devices are still important, in the past couple years there has been an exp... » read more

New Uses For Manufacturing Data


The semiconductor industry is becoming more reliant on data analytics to ensure that a chip will work as expected over its projected lifetime, but that data is frequently inconsistent or incomplete, and some of the most useful data is being hoarded by companies for competitive reasons. The volume of data is rising at each new process node, where there are simply more things to keep track of,... » read more

Sensing Automotive IC Failures


The sooner you detect a failure in any electronic system, the sooner you can act. Together, data analytics and on-chip sensors are poised to boost quality in auto chips and add a growing level of predictive maintenance for vehicles. The ballooning number of chips cars makes it difficult to reach 10 defective parts per billion for every IC that goes into a car.  And requiring that for a 15-y... » read more

Increasing eFPGA Adoption Will Shape eFPGA Features/Benefits


eFPGA adoption is accelerating. eFPGA is now available from multiple suppliers for multiple foundries and on nodes including 180nm, 40nm, 28nm, 22nm, 16nm, 12nm and 7nm. There are double-digit chips proven in silicon by multiple customers for multiple applications. And many more in fab, in design and in planning. The three main applications are: Integration of existing FPGA chips int... » read more

IC Test Solutions For The Automotive Market


The amount of electronic content in passenger cars continues to grow rapidly, driven mainly by the integration of various advanced safety features, which will increase further with the move towards fully autonomous vehicles. It is critical that these safety-related devices adhere to the highest possible quality and reliability requirements formalized in the ISO 26262 standard that is being rapi... » read more

What’s Holding Back Aging Simulation?


Aging simulation supplies information about the long-term behavior before an IC enters into production, providing an important early evaluation of the reliability required by the application and specification. Re-designs due to reliability issues, and over-design with excessive safety margins, are avoided in this way. In addition, the long-term stability can be demonstrated to the customer. ... » read more

Accelerated Life Testing For Failure Prediction


By Theresa Duncan and Chris South Product reliability is essential for success, especially for electronic products like printed circuit boards (PCB). Accelerated life testing (ALT) is an expedient and cost-effective solution to determine the reliability and robustness of an electronic product or component. ALT uncovers potential failure risks and quantifies the life characteristics of a p... » read more

Redefining Device Failures


Can a 5nm or 3nm chip really perform to spec over a couple decades? The answer is yes, but not using traditional approaches for designing, manufacturing or testing those chips. At the next few process nodes, all the workarounds and solutions that have been developed since 45nm don't necessarily apply. In the early finFET processes, for example, the new transistor structure provided a huge im... » read more

Reliability Challenges Grow For 5/3nm


Ensuring that chips will be reliable at 5nm and 3nm is becoming more difficult due to the introduction of new materials, new transistor structures, and the projected use of these chips in safety- and mission-critical applications. Each of these elements adds its own set of challenges, but they are being compounded by the fact that many of these chips will end up in advanced packages or modul... » read more

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