Micram

Test&Measurement is a  Micram business unit, providing services to bring better products to market faster, by supporting the product development cycle. Primary focus is on the time consuming period from first silicon to production release. Here, the powerful combination of Test&Measurement with Rapid!Prototyping and design services, yields short optimization cycles with board, chip and measurement engineers working hand in hand at Micram.

Test&Measurement utilizes state-of-the-art time and frequency domain measurement equipment for data rates and frequencies up to 50 Gb/s and 65 GHz. The services, performed by experienced design and measurement engineers, on wafer level in a cleanroom class 10,000 are e.g. well suited for

• device characterization, evaluation
• parameter extraction
• model generation
• at-speed on wafer measurements
• failure analysis
• on-chip/on-wafer probing and manipulating

in a wide range of applications e.g. in the ATE, Measurement, and Communications sectors.

 A short overview on measurement equipment and capabilities can be found in the following sections. Micram's Test&Measurement services are offered in conjunction with any Micram turnkey ASIC development as well as a separate complementary customer service. In addition to this in-house service, Micram carries out wafer and package level tests at any volume as well as reliability and qualification tests through dedicated industrial partner services. For more information on Test&Measurement services, please contact your Micram sales representative.

The primary focus of Micram's Test&Measurement laboratory is on high speed / high frequency measurements of digital and analog integrated circuits (ICs) and systems as well as of passive components and interconnects. Micram's measurement capabilities range from DC to

• 50 GHz in time domain (Sampling scope, frequency synthesis, modulation),
• 50 Gb/s for pattern generation (soon to be extended to 100 Gb/s),
• 50 Gb/s for BER testing (soon to be extended to 100 Gb/s),
• 65 GHz for S-parameter measurements (soon to be extended to 110 GHz),
• 100 GHz for spectrum analysis.

All measurements can be carried out for single ended as well differential devices. Moreover, measurements of even-, odd- and conversion-modes in time and frequency domain are supported. For automatization, the measurement equipment can be remote controlled. Various computer programs for automatic data acquisition and processing as well as for instrument control are available.

Conventional functional test on wafer level is used for preselection of good dies. This kind of test, usually applied in production at high volumes is provided by Micram via industrial partner services.

Wafer level services at Micram focus on the time critical engineering phase of wafer and die, which requires highest flexibility in measurement setup. During that period, measurement and test (probing) on wafer or bare die level is a fast and straightforward way to interact with the chip. All pads are directly accessible and probing configurations can be changed on the fly depending on the actual needs. Besides pure functional verification, especially at-speed measurements (currently up to 65 GHz) are a valuable aid for verification, characterization or deembedding of the plain chip performance.  As a benefit, time and cost for the assembly process can be saved or spent after successful wafer/die level measurements.

For advanced root cause of error analysis, even probing on metallization and lines of the chip wiring is possible by special measures. For modifications, ultrasonic cutting of the chip wiring can be performed even in conjunction with the ongoing measurements. Complementary laser and FIB options are accessible via industrial partner services.

Benefits of Micram wafer/die level services at a glance:

All wafer level services performed in a clean room (class 10,000).

• Functionality test (probe card or positioners).
• Preselection, screening.
• At-speed test, verification, characterization (membrane/pyramid or RF probes).
• Deembedded measurements of the plain chip without assembly.
• Error analysis, e.g. probing on / cutting of metallizations and lines.
• Probing on pads which are not accessible with assembled chips.
• Probing on pre or post assembled bare dies.

In order to verify proper device operation and to measure/characterize performance under application conditions, a method must exist to interface the measurement equipment to the device under test. Depending on the application, there is a wide variety of requirements for this interface.

Some examples are:

• Support of large number of signals.
• High frequency and/or wide bandwidth.
• High current densities (e.g. well defined and low supply voltage drop).
• DC decoupling.
• RF signal blocking.
• Well known modeled properties, which can be considered in resimulations.
• Deembedding/calibration capability.
• Quick adoption/optimization capability according to measurement results.
• Thermal interface with adequate, defined properties.

• Probing capability (wafer prober) for RF and DC signals.
• Standard or modularized fixtures, e.g. for recurring measurements.

Interfacing and fixturing for Test&Measurement are provided by -Micram Rapid!Prototyping services. For a detailed description and examples of this comprehensive service, please refer to the related Rapid!Prototyping section or contact your Micram sales representative.

High performance design needs high performance models. Adequate, application specific modeling considers all parasitics and effects on the chip as well as of the assembly with external components and the board with load which are suspect to degrade the intended device performance.

Likewise high performance designs, any design with special or unique properties suffers from the lack of appropriate models at design time since modeling often relates to the specialties of the design. Therefore, a fast method for model derivation and validation as well as model parameter extraction must exist in order to support the design promptly on demand.

As a major benefit of Micram's whole service provider concept, all modeling tasks are in-house services without delaying interfaces in between and can be performed simultaneously to the requirements of the related ASIC design:

Model development is a Design Tool service located in and interacting with the requirements of Design&Engineering.

Test structures, fixtures and interfaces for measurements are designed and produced as a Rapid!Prototyping service (cf. Interfacing page).

Model parameter extraction, model validation as well as investigations on effects supposed to be modeled, is performed under Test&Measurement activities. Modeling service is offered in conjunction with any Micram turnkey ASIC development as well as a separate complementary customer service.