Networking in a disaggregated world

Participants in this year's International Test Conference (held October 29 through November 2 in Baltimore) focused on lowering test costs. Effective design-for-test tools and low-cost ATE systems will help, but equally important will be cooperation among the disparate participants in today's design and production cycle. Sue Billat, a senior analyst at Robertson Stephens, highlighted the challenges in her keynote address. She explained that the marketing, design, production, and test functions that, in the '80s resided under the roof of an integrated device manufacturer, have undergone what Wall Street calls "disaggregation." Now, a half dozen or more companies participate in bringing a chip to market.

In such an environment, the necessary watch cry is "partner or perish," said senior engineer Phil Nigh of IBM Microelectronics in his conference address. (Although Billat and Nigh commented specifically on semiconductors, the trends they mentioned apply to PCBs and systems as well.)

The necessary partnerships can take many forms. On display were the results of test companies such as Agilent Technologies, Teradyne, and 3MTS collaborating with EDA and DFT firms such as LogicVision, Mentor Graphics, and Synopsys (in various combinations). Salland Engineering and Syntricity demonstrated software that helps geographically and organizationally dispersed supply-chain members share semiconductor manufacturing data. Teradyne demonstrated software that can access an ATE system located half a world away.

But formal company partnerships and software collaboration and connectivity tools can go only so far. Personal, face-to-face interaction remains critical and will become even more so as Billat's disaggregation gives way to what Nigh calls disintegration, with ever more groups involved in bringing a chip to profitability. Indeed, no contribution can be overlooked. A company Billat follows is PDF Solutions. What's its specialty? According to its Web site (www.pdf.com), "PDF's most important deliverable is time."

Whether you contribute DFT expertise, ATE programming skills, or additional high-volume production time within a product's window of profitability, your effectiveness will be enhanced if you can maintain close personal relationships with your colleagues throughout the design-to-production process. A convention such as the ITC is an ideal way to do that. It's understandable that attendance this year was disappointing. It would be disastrous, however, if engineers don't promptly get back on the road and nourish the personal relationships on which technological advancement depends.

As engineers, we must remember that networking is much more than the transfer of data packets over a TCP/IP link.

If your TCP/IP knowledge greatly exceeds your interpersonal networking skills, you might benefit from the "Trade show and convention prep" workshop provided by Effective Networking (www.effectivenetworking.com).