tag: test

Dealing With Test More Effectively
By Ed Sperling - 23 Aug, 2012 - Comments: 0

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 Ed Sperling - 26 Apr, 2012 - Comments: 0

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 - 06 Oct, 2011 - Comments: 0

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 Ed Sperling - 18 Sep, 2011 - Comments: 0

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

Testing One, Two, Three
By Ed Sperling - 25 Aug, 2011 - Comments: 0

By Ed Sperling The rule of thumb at 90nm—still one of the mainstream process nodes—has been that test is something you do when a chip is done. You attach electrodes on either side, make sure the signal comes through clearly, and that the SoC functions properly. Try the same thing at 40nm, with multiple power islands, multiple voltage rails, lots of third-party IP and usually a slew of p... » read more

Are Test Engineers More Highly Evolved?
By Kiran Vittal - 25 Aug, 2011 - Comments: 0

In a December 2010 blog, my colleague Ron Craig wrote that 94% of respondents to a survey said that timing constraints were a problem. Well, no surprise there. But 70+% said they planned to simply “try harder” during their next project to avoid these problems. Did they really think that was a viable solution? That blog featured a good illustration of the problem. It gave me a good laugh.... » read more

3D Stacked Die Create Unique Test Issues
By Ed Sperling - 02 Dec, 2010 - Comments: 0

By Ann Steffora Mutschler While 3D die stacking promises a number of benefits including smaller footprint, faster speed, lower power and possibly lower cost, testing those devices isn’t going to be simple. There are varying degrees of challenges aligned with varying types of defects that occur throughout the process, from wafer fabrication to package assembly to system-level assembly. And... » read more

Best Practices For Multicore SoC Test And Debug
By Ann Mutschler - 21 Oct, 2010 - Comments: 0

By Ann Steffora Mutschler In increasingly complex SoC designs, many of which contain multiple cores and multiple modes, determining best practices for testing and debugging is a moving target. Jason Andrews, architect at Cadence Design Systems, said multicore debug is a huge issue. It isn’t easy to do, and there aren’t many good ways to do it. He suggested one approach is to try to u... » read more

Rethinking Test
By Ann Mutschler - 11 Feb, 2010 - Comments: 0

By Ann Steffora Mutschler The responsibility of semiconductor test has long sat solely with the test engineer as the chip designer focused on the functionality of the device. However, particularly in low-power designs, when the device is being tested, much higher power levels are applied than normal functional operation – sometimes causing the device to fail. This ‘false failure’ c... » read more

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