Beyond PCIe Compliance: Why Stress Testing Is Crucial For Edge AI Deployments


Passing PCI Express (PCIe) compliance is different from being ready for the field. A PCIe link can clear every test in a controlled lab environment and still develop margin problems six months into deployment. That’s because a compliance traffic generator isn’t designed to replicate real-world operating conditions, such as thermal stress, electrical noise, and the kind of bursty inference t... » read more

Easing The Stress For Package-Level Burn-In


Considered something of a necessary evil, burn-in of IC packages during production does a great job of weeding out latent defects so they don’t turn into failures in the field. But as AI and multi-chiplet packages become more common, and concerns about aging circuitry heighten, shifting stress testing to the wafer level looks increasingly attractive from a quality, throughput, and cost standp... » read more

Using Deep Data For Improved Reliability Testing


Reliability testing always has been a challenge for semiconductor companies, but it’s becoming much more difficult as devices continue to shrink, as they’re integrated together in advanced packages, and as they’re utilized under different conditions with life expectancy that varies by application and use case. Nir Sever, senior director of business development at proteanTecs, and Luca Mor... » read more

Making Chip Packaging More Reliable


Packaging houses are readying the next wave of IC packages, but these products must prove to be reliable before they are incorporated into systems. These packages involve several advanced technologies, such as 2.5D/3D, chiplets and fan-out, but vendors also are working on new versions of more mature package types, like wirebond and leadframe technologies. As with previous products, packaging... » read more

Controlling The Reliability Of Silicon Carbide-Based Devices


The development of wide bandgap silicon carbide (SiC) compound semiconductors has proved to be extremely beneficial for power conversion applications. Capable of switching at significantly higher frequencies, and with higher breakdown voltage characteristics, SiC power transistors are quickly becoming an attractive silicon alternative for high power density and/or high-efficiency power conver... » read more