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Wireless Data Logger Revolutionizes Automotive Industry Processes

Advantest’s new AirLogger WM1000 is the widely anticipated wireless data logger for commercial applications. Compliant with FCC regulations and certified under the Technical Regulations Conformity System of Japan, the WM1000 has diverse uses in the automobile industry and beyond, from R&D to the production floor.

The AirLogger’s sensor unit, which incorporates a thermocouple data processor, wirelessly sends temperature data to a PC for display and saving. It can measure temperatures at 100 points, and can also measure the temperatures of moving and rotating objects, such as wheels, which are difficult to measure with existing temperature loggers. These capabilities give the AirLogger a wide range of applications in diverse sectors. The AirLogger has been praised by early adopters as a revolutionary instrument that cuts thermocouple setting time by 80%, and enables previously impossible temperature measurements of moving wheels and brakes.

In the automotive industry, and many other manufacturing and R&D fields, temperature measurement and evaluation are normally performed with data loggers whose measurement units and data processing units are connected by cables. Set-up, measurement, and breakdown take a considerable length of time, impacting process efficiency. Additionally, in recent years, measurement targets have become smaller, creating a need for smaller sensor units and simultaneous multiple point measurement functionality. Advantest’s AirLogger series addresses all of these challenges with its revolutionary wireless solution for temperature logging.

Customers adopting the AirLogger have seen dramatic productivity gains, as they are freed from the constraints of working with data cables.

airlogger

Key Features of the AirLogger:

  • Compact, Fully Wireless Design Dramatically Boosts Efficiency
    The AirLogger’s sensor units use button batteries for their power supplies and transmit temperature measurements wirelessly. The fully cable-free configuration enables dramatic productivity gains and enables easy temperature measurement for formerly difficult-to-measure targets such as revolving tires and other moving objects.
  • Real-Time Simultaneous Measurement of Temperatures at Multiple Points
    Temperatures at up to 100 separate points can be measured simultaneously, and measurements are processed in real time.
  • Fully Wireless Design Dramatically Boosts Efficiency

The AirLoggerTM’s sensor unit, which incorporates a thermocouple data processor, wirelessly sends temperature data to a PC for display and saving. The WM1000 dramatically boosts efficiency by freeing users from the constraints of working with data cables.

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Die-Level Handling System Enables KGD Testing

Advantest’s new HA1000 die-level handler is a cost-efficient test solution for determining known good dies (KGD) prior to IC packaging.  It is the ideal solution for high-growth applications including mobile electronics and high-performance networking devices.  With economics a driving factor in die-level testing, determining a semiconductor device’s viability prior to packaging or building memory stacks is critical to avoiding rework, achieving high yields and lowering costs.  The HA1000’s ability to perform pre-assembly testing of singulated devices provides a new level of visibility into the quality of the device prior to committing additional devices and expensive packages to an assembly that could potentially have to be scrapped because of undetected problems.

HA1000-1

The new die-level handler allows full device testing to be performed before assembly, providing time-critical information that typically is only available at final test.  HA1000 is designed to handle a wide variety of devices from large high-power server/GPU type devices to small systems-on-chip (SoCs) and memory devices/stacks, such as HBM2.   The die-level handler can accommodate both thick and thin parts as well as stacks of 3D devices and partially or fully assembled 2.5D integrations.   In addition, the HA1000 is ideal to probe fine-pitch pads, bumps, microbumps and pillars.  Future applications of the system may also include probing of through-silicon vias (TSVs).

When joined together with the V93000 test system, Advantest provides a full test solution called the Die-Level Tester (DLT). This solution offers the following capabilities:

  • Handles large, small, thick or thin devices.
  • Can handle 3D stacks, 2.5D assemblies, and even partial assemblies.
  • Vision alignment aligns the probes to pads, bumps, pillars or TSVs
  • Automatic planarity adjustments to insure solid contact to non-flat surfaces.
  • Integrated high-power active thermal control system to speed the testing of large complex designs.
  • V93000 provides the ability to debug and test high-performance digital, analog, RF, and DC devices.

HA1000-2

Target applications for the DLT reap a variety of benefits:

  • Probing the singulated die just before assembly can improve final product yield while greatly reducing the cost of scrap.
  • Active thermal control at the die level allows full final-test execution in order to maximize later yields.
  • The DLT allows full testing of previously untested devices that may have been delivered from a multi-project wafer.
  • The DLT performs KGD final testing of products to be delivered in die form.
  • The DLT can speed time to market by allowing detailed device debug while blind product build takes place.
  • The DLT can re-screen die-bank parts, allowing them to be re-programmed to meet new needs or tested to confirm performance to new requirements.

Most importantly, the handler’s precision vision alignment system precisely positions probe points to the finest pitch in use today.  While properly positioning the chuck under the probes, the system can also adjust the planarity to match with the device surface to ensure a solid device connection. Its active thermal control (ATC) system enables the HA1000 to adjust on the fly to temperature fluctuations at the die’s surface over a very broad dynamic range of -40˚ C to 125˚ C.  The temperature of the thermal head quickly responds using a hot-cold fluid mix.  Thanks to low thermal resistance and high thermal capacity, the system can handle high-power devices with a thermal responsiveness often better than is possible in a packaged environment.   This allows manufactures to test parts at higher power levels and/or tighter margins, which can improve yields while reducing scrap.

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Flexible, Massively Parallel RF Device Testing Is Here

By Adrian Kwan, Business Development Manager, Advantest America

Today’s interconnected world provides great conveniences and many opportunities for staying in touch with family, friends and colleagues – not to mention our physical environment and our own health. Our daily lives are replete with smartphones, tablets, cameras, RFID tags, and wearable/sensor-driven devices – all of which require semiconductor ICs to perform to specification. In the wearables category alone, industry estimates project an annual $5-8 billion demand for ICs to supply this market, driven by requirements for low power, connectivity, sensors, and touch and voice interfaces.

All of these devices are connected through a variety of wireless standards: LTE, LTE-Advanced and LTE-A Pro smartphone standards, as well as LTE-M, WLAN, GPS, ZigBee and Bluetooth. This surfeit of standards creates technological complexities, as these wireless technologies – many of which are enabling the Internet of Things (IoT) – have unique requirements and performance criteria that differ depending upon the application. In addition, while 3G/4G LTE technology currently drives the majority of cellular data traffic and covers the most frequencies, 5G is lurking on the horizon and will bring new production challenges.

Devices based on all of these wireless technologies must be fully tested and characterized before they can be brought to market. This makes flexibility and scalability of automated test equipment (ATE) a fundamental requirement. Advantest is answering this demand with new offerings specifically developed to accommodate the testing demands associated with current and emerging RF chips.

Advantest’s Wave Scale™ generation of channel cards for the V93000 “universal pin” test platform represents a paradigm shift in testing RF and mixed-signal devices, delivering unprecedented levels of parallelism and throughput unmatched by other solutions.  The V93000 Wave Scale RF and V93000 Wave Scale MX cards substantially reduce the cost of test and time to market for RF semiconductors while creating a path for testing future 5G devices.

IMG_2574[7]Current RF testing solutions, which typically require multiple cards plus a separate calibration kit, have employed a fan-out architecture in which subsystem resources are shared. This means that devices with multiple frequency paths are actually tested in serial within the device, rather than in true parallel mission mode testing. It also means that only one RF standard can be tested at a time per site. The V93000 Wave Scale RF condenses four independent RF subsystems into one fully integrated instrument with massive parallelism – as many as 32 ports on each unit, with up 6 units in each system provides the flexibility of up to 192 ports for parallel testing of multiple RF device types. This is enabled via in-site parallelism, in which shared resources are omitted, thus removing the limitations placed on test speedup by other RF test solutions.

Wave Scale RF and corresponding Wave Scale MX cards can simultaneously test multiple standards or multiple paths within each RF device, achieving both in-site parallelism and high multi-site efficiency. Devices can be tested 2-3x faster than with prior solutions – significantly reducing the cost of test. This is a key requirement for OEMs and fabless semiconductor companies needing to get volume RF-enabled devices to market as quickly as possible.

Both Wave Scale RF and Wave Scale MX feature built-in calibration, and both are water-cooled at the pin electronics level to maintain consistent temperature across all pins. The Wave Scale MX high-speed card is optimized for analog IQ baseband applications and testing of high-speed DACs and ADCs. As with Wave Scale RF, Wave Scale MX omits shared resources, delivering parallel, independent operation of all 32 instruments controlled by a hardware sequencer.

Device integration, market segmentation and performance improvements are the inevitable result of consumer demands for more capability, convenience and mobility. Advantest is leading the way for next-generation RF ATE with its new V93000 Wave Scale solutions, designed to simultaneously support the diverse performance and economic needs of new RF device standards.

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Testing Ultra-Fast Memories…Ultra Fast

By Ken Hanh Lai, Director of Memory Marketing, Memory Business Development

Advanced high-speed test is becoming increasingly important as ultra-fast memory ICs are integrated into a greater number of end products. High-speed memory test systems need to accommodate this trend and offer advanced memory test capabilities for such high-speed ICs. One key category of high-speed memories is GDDR5 (graphics double data rate memory), designed for use in graphics cards, game consoles, and high-performance computational products. These devices include a high-speed parallel data bus that operates at around 8 gigabits per second (Gbps) today and is targeted to go up to 16 Gbps in the future (GDDR5X, GDDR6).

Other fast memory ICs operate using high-speed serial interfaces. Often, a serial bus can be operated at higher overall data rates than a parallel bus because a serial bus inherently has no timing skew or crosstalk. Examples of this include Universal Serial Bus (USB) and PCI Express (PCIe).  The benefits of these implementations include cost-effective, lower-pin-count designs.

These new memory test challenges are being addressed by the new HSM16G, a fully integrated memory test card recently introduced by Advantest (Figure 1). The card extends the high-speed testing capabilities of the company’s V93000 HSM series of testers to native 16 Gbps for at-speed testing of ultra-fast memory ICs. The card provides 32 channels, which are set up as 8 differential receive (RX) and transmit (TX) lines in the 16-Gbps operation mode. Additionally, the card can be switched to two lower-speed operating modes: an HSM8G-compatible operating mode for up to 8-Gbps operation and a 32-channel I/O base mode for up to 1.8-Gbps operation.

HSM 16G Figure 1.  Advantest HSM16G card for ultra-fast-memory test.

The V93000 HSM Series with the HSM16G card provides ultra high-speed memory test capabilities in a cost-effective, small-footprint tester, making it well suited for engineering, design verification, and characterization. Other, less-fast testers have to perform complex multiplexing using lower speed channels  with add-on solutions to reach the speeds needed to test future GDDR5 and other high-speed devices. Because of the subsequent multiplexing, algorithmic pattern generation (APG) is significantly restricted, and only a limited feature set is available for characterization and debugging. The HSM16G card avoids these constraints thanks to its native 16-Gbps speed.

The new card features comprehensive measurement capabilities, including per-pin algorithmic pattern generation to test any kind of fault algorithm and fail bitmap capture. Programmable equalization allows for cable-loss compensation and rise-time control to support the highest signal integrity. A precision per-pin clock with less than 1 picosecond (ps) jitter enables the industry’s most accurate jitter measurements. Further capabilities that set the HSM16G apart are its per-pin-based arbitrary jitter modulation for device characterization and stress test, as well as a set of integrated analysis tools. Key volume-production features include per-pin embedded searches for rapid alignment to the center of the data eye, fast eye measurements to screen for both eye height and eye width, and an integrated time measurement unit (TMU) for accurate jitter measurements.

For memory ICs with serial bus interfaces such as PCIe and Universal Flash Storage (UFS), the HSM16G card offers comprehensive physical layer test (PHY characterization). This enables the card to cover all memory devices with high-speed serial interfaces or high-speed parallel memory buses.

Fully compatible with the V93000 HSM series’ hardware and software, the HSM16G card can be factory installed or retrofit onto a customer’s installed tester base. It enables reuse of existing test programs for HSM testers, with minimal adaptation, letting customers quickly set up the new card and get to work.

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Advantest Achieves Top 30 Ranking from Green Power Partners

green-powerContinuing Advantest America, Inc.’s commitment to conducting its business in a manner that delivers leading environmental, health and safety performance, AAI is very proud to have entered its 5th year having earned a spot on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Top 30 Tech & Telecom list, which ranks the country’s largest green power users in this sector.  A new web tool from the EPA shows Advantest America (currently 27th) as well as the other Green Power Partners on the list.

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Green Partner Power Partner Map

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