Guest commentaries
Make metrology a standard occupation
Chris Grachanen, Hewlett-Packard
On May 23, 2008, The US Department of Labor (DOL) informed me that it had rejected a petition to recognize metrology job descriptions in its proposed 2010 Standard Occupational Classification System (SOC). You can help to convince the DOL that metrology job descriptions should be included in the 2010 SOC. Read more.
GPIB remains in heavy use
Murali Ravindran, National Instruments
Many instrument-control bus technologies—with varying bus speeds, latency, connectors, cabling, and prices—have come and gone over the years. GPIB, however, continues to dominate instrument-control bus in the industry today. Read more.
TUG conference celebrates 25 years
Tom Munns, Freescale Semiconductor
The Teradyne Users Group technical program, slated for April 27-30 in Austin, TX, will combine learning, collaboration, and networking to address mixed-signal, RF/wireless, digital, aerospace and defense, and power-automotive test topics. Read more.
Metrology personnel shortage is real
Chris Grachanen, Hewlett-Packard
With the US facing a shortfall of technical professionals, concerned individuals and professional metrology organizations are taking steps to increase metrology awareness with an emphasis on education and training. Read more.
New LXI products and capabilities unleash the power of Ethernet
Bob Rennard, LXI Consortium
The recent LXI PlugFest, hosted by VXI Technology in Irvine, CA, demonstrated how LXI and network technologies are changing test and measurement. With nearly 500 products certified as LXI-compliant, and a growing list of Class B and Class A products on the market and under development, the meeting was alive with application stories demonstrating impressive systems results through the application of LXI. Read more.
Increasing abstraction makes DFT more effective
Chouki Aktouf, DeFacTo Technologies
IC designers will continue to use mainstream DFT methods such as scan, test compression, and built-in self test (BIST), but they will also need new DFT solutions that ensure that design and test requirements can be met for deep-submicron devices. Read more.
The need for new ATE interface standards
Klaus Luther, Infineon Technologies and the Semiconductor Test Consortium
The need to realize the test-floor cost and operating efficiencies that can be gained through standardization has never been greater. The Semiconductor Test Consortium's STIX initiative can help define critically needed ATE interface standards. Read more.
Legacy test systems for PCB test and repair
Mark Harding, Digitaltest
Two major categories of legacy issues predominate in electronics test and repair: the “old legacy system issues,” which promarily address repair, and the “new legacy system issues,” which center on correlation between test resources at the target volume manufacturing facility and the development center. Read more.
Thinking out of the box: Expanding STC's impact with STIX
Steve Wigley, Semiconductor Test Consortium and LTX
The Semiconductor Test Consortium, which has focused on the OpenStar ATE standard, has, with the launch of the STIX initiative, expanded its scope to include the interfaces that surround an ATE system. Read more.
A test transformation: "Scotty, more power"
William Mann, General Chair Emeritus, IEEE Semiconductor Wafer Test Workshop
One would like to provide complementary temperature tests between wafer and package. For example, probe at ambient temperature and package test at high temperature, or vice-versa if there is a significant yield loss at high temperature. Read more.
A test transformation: parallel testing
William Mann, General Chair Emeritus, IEEE Semiconductor Wafer Test Workshop
The biggest cost reduction results from testing multiple devices in parallel. For by-2, and by-4 parallel testing, the cost reduction is almost directly proportional to the number of parallel devices. Read more.
A test transformation
William Mann, General Chair Emeritus, IEEE Semiconductor Wafer Test Workshop
The cost of test has been an issue ever since the development of the IC. Part 1 of this three-part series covers the period from an Intel executive’s call to to cut test costs at the 1999 International Test Conference through the emergence of open-architecture, DFT-focused ATE. Read more.
From potential energy to value added by test
Dr. Fang Xu, Teradyne
Using test to screen scrap from a production line to make a final product is not fundamentally different from extracting silicon from its dioxide in order to make wafers. Read more.
Design automation reshapes the foundry-client dynamic
Chris Allsup, Synopsys
Silicon-foundry participation in design is enabling the implementation of volume diagnostics that drive improvements in manufacturing yield. Read more.
The technology driving Instrumentation 2.0—multicore processors
David A. Hall, National Instruments
Multicore processors are helping engineers push their instrument systems to higher performance levels. Read more.
The technology driving Instrumentation 2.0—FPGAs
Rick Kuhlman, National Instruments
Field-programmable gate arrays serve as the enabling technology that helps implement custom hardware in Instrumentation 2.0 systems. Read more.
It’s time to abandon the gold standard in PCB test
John VanNewkirk, CheckSum
In light of today’s fault-spectrum and production-cycle realities, it’s time to take a fresh look at what you really need in an in-circuit tester. Read more.
A PXI timeline
Carsten Puls, Key Crossing
As the chief editor of the original PXI specification and founder and first chairman of the PXI Systems Alliance I find it’s great to look back and see how far PXI has come in the last ten years. I appreciate T&M World commemorating this anniversary with the article “PXI turns 10,” and I thought I’d add some unique insight into the key events that led up to the formation of this successful world-wide standard. Read more.
The technology driving Instrumentation 2.0—PCI Express
Murali Ravindran, National Instruments
PCI Express provides the high bandwidth and low latency necessary to enable the transition to Instrumentation 2.0, which in turn gives engineers and scientists the option of moving from fixed-functionality stand-alone systems to flexible, user-definable software-based systems. Read more.
PCI Express, multicore processors, and FPGAs drive Instrumentation 2.0
Eric Starkloff, National Instruments
Test instrumentation is undergoing a fundamental change—from fixed-functionality standalone instruments to flexible software-based devices that users can redefine. While instruments have been around a lot longer than the Web, the Web community is currently focused on a similar trend toward user-empowerment, called Web 2.0. In the same vein, a software-based approach to instrumentation inherently empowers users to build custom instrumentation to meet their unique application needs; therefore, I call this approach Instrumentation 2.0. Read more.
Investment in JTAG standards development benefits entire industry
Glenn Woppman, ASSET InterTech
Active participation in formal standards work sanctioned by groups like IEEE, JEDEC, and PICMG can sometimes lead to the development of a standard, and so, too, can participation in ad hoc, informal working groups. The question of “formal vs. informal” doesn’t really matter. The current status of the IJTAG and SJTAG activities offers a case in point. Read more.
65-nm IC designs need DWT as well as DFM
Sanjiv Taneja, Cadence Design Systems
As process geometries shrink to 65 nm and below, manufacturing test must expand its role in the design, implementation, and production of semiconductor devices. Much like DFM and its manufacturing-driven design flow, which is an accepted requirement today, a “test-driven” design and implementation flow—which I call "design with test"—is now at the forefront of chip-design concerns. Read more.
EDA does support Serdes test
Stephen Sunter, LogicVision
I must disagree with part of T&MW chief editor Rick Nelson’s introductory statement in "ATE adapts to meet SOC test needs." He writes, "Despite innovative design-for-test (DFT) products from EDA companies, SOC devices will continue to sport high-speed serial, RF, video, and other functions that aren't readily testable using DFT techniques." Read more
IJTAG, SJTAG claims premature
CJ Clark, Intellitech
I listened to T&MW chief editor Rick Nelson’s ITC audio interview with Glenn Woppman of Asset InterTech, in which Woppman discussed IEEE P1687 (IJTAG) and a potential standard on system-level JTAG. I believe the pronouns and ownership words such as “your IJTAG,” “your SJTAG demo,” and “we have this and that” in reference to IEEE working groups (WGs) are a bit misplaced. Read more
