Mentor expands DFM strategy with YieldAssist

Mentor Graphics' YieldAssist diagnostic tool for enhancing semiconductor yield aims to quickly and accurately identify and isolate yield-limiting defects. YieldAssist expands Mentor's design-for-test (DFT) product portfolio beyond classical test generation and defect detection.

YieldAssist is based on the premise that failing devices from the wafer-sort phase of manufacturing test can provide a gold mine of information. YieldAssist allows semiconductor manufacturers to harvest this information through its ability to directly read failure logs from compressed test patterns and identify both systematic and random defects to drive failure analysis and yield improvement. It also provides a link back into the design process for improving design for manufacturability as well as for adaptively improving the quality of the manufacturing test itself.

The vendor positions YieldAssist as a product that addresses one key area—rapid high-volume diagnosis—out of three necessary for an effective overall yield-learning strategy. The other two areas include manufacturing test, which the company's TestKompress or FastScan automatic test-program generation tools address, and defect isolation, which the company addresses by providing a link between YieldAssist and the firm's Calibre results viewing environment, which in turn provides a physical layout view that helps users isolate defects to particular physical locations—see the red arrow in the accompanying figure.

Base price: $126,000 per year for a term-based license. Mentor Graphics, www.mentor.com