Evaluation Engineering - 13

no longer working for them and there is
a demand for adaptable test equipment,
offering ease-of-use, durability, and the
capability to work on various systems."
Loerner, Rohde & Schwarz: "It is important to work closely with customers
to understand the test needs in order
to optimize the test solution and work
out together the best and most efficient
test plan."
Stasonis, Pickering: "Increasing the speed
of test often requires parallel testing to
improve throughput. There appears to be
little new hardware on the test floors we
have seen, so test systems are getting old,
as chip manufacturers are trying to get by
on existing technology. Having said that,
we are seeing more do-it-yourself tests
systems being built in-house."
Semancik, Marvin Test Solutions:
"Vendors face pressures to control costs
and improve time to market, which has
sparked a move to retrofit existing production test systems with RF test capabilities, providing flexibility to leverage
existing test assets where appropriate."
Eide, Mentor: "It's not just about cost and
quality anymore; it's about efficient implementation and functional safety. This is
new to many IC manufacturers, but also
IC vendors."

What are customers asking for?
Here are the features and other innovations today's semiconductor test customers are asking vendors to provide.
Knoth, Cadence: "Customers are looking
for more of a "left shift" with DFT, making
test a job responsibility of the RTL designers as well as implementation, so there's
not just the one "test expert." Customers
are also looking at balancing the cost of
test with DPPM reduction for higher levels
of compression, physical awareness, etc.
Additionally, they are looking for high ATPG
coverage without local power/IR issues."
Davies, Advantest: "One of the few things
that remain steadfast in the test market
is that integrated device manufacturers

and outsourced semiconductor assembly and test
companies continue to
require greater testing
functionality at a lower
cost of test."
Arebi and Malatest,
Per Vices: "Many of the
demands of customers
are being addressed by vendors as they
are recognizing that creating hardware
that matches a very specific use case is
becoming insufficient. Customers need
customizable platforms that are able to
incorporate both RF and digital capabilities in semiconductor test. This demand
has been addressed with software defined
radios (SDR), which offer a high number
of radio channels, high bandwidth and
wide operating frequency, and on-board
FPGA resources; these attributes are key
metrics that enable the necessary inherent flexibility that is being demanded.
This flexibility provides additional benefits to customers, allowing test providers
to do various tests on one device due to
their ability to be programmed to implement any standard, while allowing them
to accelerate the process of deploying
semiconductor components.
Loerner, Rohde & Schwarz: "The earlier
components are tested, the lower value
is bound per device and a selection can
be done early in the process in order
to minimize additional costs on faulty
parts by further process steps. Extensive
on-wafer test enables an early selection
but requires fast and easy adoption and
handling of calibrations to get reliable
and repeatable results in a challenging
environment. We see today not only basic

Pickering's model
40-559 series BRIC
Ultra-High-Density PXI
Matrix Modules.

power consumption and test points to
be checked, but full RF test from CW to
modulated tests already on wafer level."
Stasonis, Pickering: "The size of tester is
brought up. Basically, Semi manufacturers want smaller, lower cost, higher performance. Talk about a challenge!"
Semancik, Marvin Test Solutions: "The
move to 5G devices is driving the need
for higher frequency RF test capabilities;
demands for parallel 40 GHz to 80 GHz
test are becoming more commonplace."
Eide, Mentor: "Companies are asking for
the ability of test applications to handle
larger and more complex semiconductor
devices. Those companies are preparing
for test earlier in the design flow to be able
to reduce the number of iterations and
impact of test challenges. A lot of companies are asking for methods to make
analog test more efficient."

Per Vices' latest softwaredefined-radio, Cyan.
JULY 2019 EVALUATIONENGINEERING.COM

13
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