Fairchild Buys Advantest 1GHz Tester for High-Speed Logic ICs

Electronic News, March 27, 2000 by Jeff Chappell

Fairchild Semiconductor International recently purchased Advantest America Inc.'s T6682 1GHz test system, now that the Portland, Maine, semiconductor manufacturer has expanded its product offerings to high-speed, custom-designed logic components. Advantest, Santa Clara, Calif., said the T6682 will give Fairchild the ability to quickly perform test development and complete evaluation testing of standard interface and logic designs and allow the company to meet its stated goal of 90-day development time for new products. Advantest America is a subsidiary of Advantest Corp., Tokyo. Advantest said it has incorporated unique test technology into the T6682. The system features a MULTi-pin architecture that supports single-wire IO, separate I and O paths, and fly-by IO for each tester pin channel. Traditional automatic test equipment pin architectures support only single-wire IO. With MULTi-pin architecture, the T6682 can test devices of greater than 1,024 pins and supports a fly-by connection to a device IO pin with a single tester channel. This allows testing IO pins without bus turnaround dead time at test rates of up to 1GHz, the company said.

Applied Ships Milestone SEMVision Systems

Applied Materials Inc., Santa Clara, Calif., recently shipped its 50th SEMVision Defect Review Scanning Electron Microscope (DR-SEM) less than two years after the product was first introduced. Lucent Technologies, Murray Hill, N.J., purchased the milestone SEMVision system for its Advanced Development and Research Facility in Orlando, Florida, where it will be used in the development of sub-0.12-micron communications devices. The SEMVision's defect review technology is capable of automatically classifying a broad range of process defects five to 10 times faster than manual systems, according to Applied. The SEMVision systems can provide defect material and origin information for both patterned and bare wafers, and trace the problems directly to processing equipment, Applied said. The electron microscope's patented Multiple Perspective SEM Imaging technology simultaneously provides three different perspectives of an image: one enhances material and edge contrast and two others enhance topographic contrast of defects. These different perspectives provide superior imaging capability and a very high defect redetection rate for all types of defects, Applied said.

New SEMI Documents Help ATE Users Compare Test Equipment

Mountain View, Calif.-based Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI), in conjunction with member companies and industry experts, released three new standards documents last week that address IC manufacturers' concerns with accuracy and repeatability in testing their products using automatic test equipment (ATE). Two of the documents are test methods and are designated SEMI G78 and G80; the third document is a specification, designated SEMI G79. The documents standardize ATE specifications and methodologies so manufacturers can make apples-to-apples comparisons of equipment more easily and quickly. Reporting of specifications in the SEMI format will be a requirement for participation in future SEMI ATE evaluations. Development of the standards was facilitated through the SEMI International Standards Program. About 3,000 technologists worldwide, representing both device manufacturers and equipment and materials suppliers, participate in the program to develop voluntary technical agreements between suppliers and customers.