3D-IC Testing With The Mentor Graphics Tessent Platform


Three-dimensional stacked integrated circuits (3D-ICs) are composed of multiple stacked die, and are viewed as critical in helping the semiconductor industry keep pace with Moore's Law. Current integration and interconnect methods include wirebond and flip-chip and have been in production for some time. 3D chips connected via interposers are in production at Xilinx, Samsung, IBM, and Sematec... » read more

3D Brings Test Into Fashion


By Ann Steffora Mutschler As integral and critical as test is to the success of an SoC, it isn’t always one of those topics in semiconductor design that seems fashionable. But as Bassilios Petrakis, director of product marketing for test products at Cadence pointed out, “[Test] is not in fashion, but when we hit one of those brick walls then suddenly we have to think how we are going to... » read more

Optimizing Test To Enable Diagnosis-Driven Yield Analysis


Using diagnosis-driven yield analysis, companies have decreased their time to yield, managed manufacturing excursions and recovered yield caused by systematic defects. Dramatic time savings and yield gains have been proven using these methods. Companies must plan ahead to take advantage of diagnosis-driven yield analysis. The planning needs to include how and what patterns to generate during AT... » read more

Testing One, Two, Three


The sheer number of off-the-shelf parts that are showing up in ICs these days—and that includes both hard and soft parts—means that to a large extent we are designing and manufacturing a series of interconnected black boxes. Black boxes, at least in theory, are a major time saver. The idea that you can put together a series of well-designed, state-of-the-art Lego-like blocks that are pro... » read more

LP Test Strategies


By Luke Lang Power during test is one area that is often overlooked. In the worst (but easiest to diagnose) case, excessive test power can lead to a smoking chip on the tester. (You don’t need an engineering education to see the problem.) In a better (but more difficult to diagnose) case, excessive test power will cause reduced yield. Let’s look at what causes excessive test power and how ... » read more

Experts At The Table: Stacked Die Reality Check


By Ed Sperling Semiconductor Manufacturing & Design sat down with Sunil Patel, principal member of the technical staff for package technology at GlobalFoundries; Steve Pateras, product marketing director at Mentor Graphics; Steve Smith, senior director of platform marketing at Synopsys; Thorsten Matthias, business development director at EVGroup; and Manish Ranjan, vice president of market... » read more

Dealing With Test More Effectively


By Ed Sperling Shrinking geometries are starting to have the same effect on test as they are on other parts of an SoC, with the focus shifting from area to leakage, heat, noise, signal integrity, and the impact on overall system performance. The warning that design teams have to consider test much earlier in the design was issued to chipmakers years ago and largely ignored. At 28nm that war... » read more

Boosting Yield With Layout Awareness


By Ann Steffora Mutschler Yield. Just the word can make many engineers cringe and hide in their cubicles—especially with manufacturing problems and excessive power during test increasing causing failures. But the combination of physical data with diagnostics engines may be the light at the end of the tunnel, allowing for easier pinpointing of defects. There are many reasons why a chip fai... » read more

The Hidden Costs Of Test


By Ed Sperling As complexity grows in SoCs, so does the ability to accurately test them. That helps explain why there are so many different types of tests and so much confusion about what to use to perform those tests, when to test, and where in the flows to include those tests. But what’s less well known is that tests done improperly also can give false results, labeling good chips as bad�... » read more

DFT: Essential For Power-Aware Test


By Ann Steffora Mutschler Power-aware test is a major manufacturing consideration due to the problems of increased power dissipation in various test modes, as well as test implications that come up with the usage of various low-power design technologies. Challenges for test engineers and test tool developers include understanding the various concerns associated with power-aware test, develo... » read more

← Older posts Newer posts →