Commercial Challenges and Quality Robustness Issue in Semiconductor Manufacture Test and Measurement

Today’s economical cycles also challenge the test program development process for semiconductors with regard to economics, productivity, time to market and increasing quality requirements while at the same time the complexity of the system-on-chip Integrated Circuits to be tested is increasingly significant. Furthermore to increase competitive advantage, especially in mass production, the developed and applied test and measurement methods have to be state of the art ensuring shortest possible test times while at the same time best test coverage and robustness has to be achieved. This paper presents a novel way of addressing these challenges, by applying software engineering methods and software test techniques to the test program development process. Employing open source based software creates an integrated solution and workspace while additionally providing the necessary tool support. This leads to commercial advantages, and additionally offers a potential roadmap away from proprietary tools sets.