Test industry on the rise
Greg Reed, Technical Editor -- Test & Measurement World, 10/1/2004
As the semiconductor business has shown signs of improving, semiconductors used in automotive applications are getting attention from test equipment makers. The news coming out of this year's Semicon West show (www.semi.org) offered proof of technology advancement and improving business conditions.
Notable examples of new test technology exhibited at the show included Advantest America's Model T7721 test system for automotive and power components. The system addresses the need for integrated, designed-in parallel test for power train, safety control, and auto body semiconductors. Nextest also touted its Magnum series for cost-sensitive high-pin-count semiconductors used in microcontrollers, nonvolatile memory, logic, and RF components. Pickering Interfaces introduced a PXI module with a matrix for switching RF signals to 400 MHz.
On the conference side, both Agilent and Teradyne presented solutions for large-scale military and aerospace applications. Meanwhile, LTX announced that Melexis Microelectronic Integrated Systems has purchased multiple Fusion CX systems to test automotive sensor ICs at its Erfurt, Germany, facility.
While the semiconductor industry continues to rebound, clearly more test systems will target automotive applications. These testers will offer further digital control and will include boundary-scan and built-in self-test capabilities; in turn, these features will require much larger and faster pattern generators and memory.
Contact Greg Reed at editor@aatr.net .
