SoC Challenges Test Infrastructure

摘要

With the availability of advanced integrated-circuit (IC) design methodologies and high-density process technologies, semicon-ductor manufacturers can create system-on-chip (SoC) devices that integrate diverse digital and analog cores in chips of unprecedented size and functionality. Despite all the benefits of advanced design and fabrication capabilities, however, IC manufacturers face unprecedented challenges in moving these complex devices to volume production quickly and cost-effectively. In combining several functional blocks in a single device, today's SoC devices challenge the ability of traditional test methodologies to reduce time-to-volume and cost-of-test. As a result, manufacturers are turning to more comprehensive approaches that are able to achieve more effective test program development, speed first-silicon verification and enable cost-effective production test despite fast-changing test requirements. By efficiently leveraging design and test resources, these new approaches offer a more effective SoC design-to-production-test solution able to reduce both time-to-volume and cost-of-test of increasingly complex SoC devices.