Integrated circuit testing for quality assurance in manufacturing:history, current status, and future trends

摘要

Integrated circuit (IC) testing for quality assurance isnapproaching 50% of the manufacturing costs for some complex mixed-signalnICs. For many years the market growth and technology advancements inndigital ICs were driving the developments in testing. The increasingntrend to integrate information acquisition and digital processing on thensame chip has spawned increasing attention to the test needs ofnmixed-signal ICs. The recent advances in wireless communicationsnindicate a trend toward the integration of the RF and baseband mixednsignal technologies. In this paper we examine the developments in ICntesting from the historic, current status and future view points. Innseparate sections we address the testing developments for digital, mixednsignal and RF ICs. With these reviews as context, we relate new testnparadigms that have the potential to fundamentally alter the methodsnused to test mixed-signal and RF parts