With time-to-yield being a key to profitability, advanced foundries, integrated device manufacturers and fabless companies can no longer afford the limitations of conventional electrical fault analysis tools, which are only able to isolate critical electrical defects at the dicing and packaging stages. The Meridian WS-DP removes this limitation by providing optical electrical fault isolation (EFA) on full wafers using production testers, load boards, and probe cards, greatly accelerating time to defect localization. In addition, no modifications to wafer sort test programs are required, ensuring precise defect localization accuracy as well as faster workflow set-up between fabless manufacturers and their foundries.
"The newly installed Meridian WS-DP uses a high bandwidth cable interface between the tester and the wafer probe card. Shmoo testing with and without the interface demonstrates excellent correlation after TDR recalibration," said Howard Marks, Director of the Silicon Failure Analysis Lab at NVIDIA. "This was a key requirement for us and helps ensure that we are targeting the same defect that was caught during production testing. In addition, the interface provides isolation of the high resolution optics in the WaferScan system from any vibrations that would otherwise come through from the tester. This allows us to achieve the ultimate resolution that the optics are capable of."
"Yields at the most advanced nodes remain highly challenging -- especially for finFET technology -- and electrical faults are the major reason why," said Dr. Israel Niv, Chief Executive Officer of DCG Systems. "By reducing the time to defect localization, the Meridian WS-DP helps ensure that advanced technology manufacturers meet their customer's critical need for reliable, on-time supply."
The Meridian WS-DP is the latest addition to the Meridian line of electrical fault isolation systems, which have found wide adoption for technology development, design debug, yield ramp, yield enhancement, and customer return failure analysis. All diagnostic options from the Meridian product line are available for the Meridian WS-DP, including: LVx, emission, LADA, and OBIRCH. For more information, visit the DCG Systems, Inc. web page.
The Meridian WS-DP will be introduced on September 30, 2014 at DCG Technical Seminar in Hsinchu, Taiwan.
Visit us at ITC in Seattle, Washington on October 21-23, 2014 and at ISTFA in Houston Texas on November 9-14, 2014.
About DCG Systems
DCG Systems, Inc. is the industry's leading supplier of systems that enable direct localization and characterization of electrical faults in integrated circuits, packages and board assemblies. DCG Systems are used worldwide throughout the electronics product life cycle, from IC process development and design de-bug, to yield ramp and yield enhancement, to supporting advanced packaging engineering, and finally to failure analysis of customer returns.
DCG Systems has more than 1500 systems deployed worldwide, and serves its global customer base from its headquarters in Fremont, California and its field offices in the United States, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Israel and Germany. For more information about DCG Systems, visit www.dcgsystems.com.
About NVIDIA
Since 1993, NVIDIA has pioneered the art and science of visual computing. The company's technologies are transforming a world of displays into a world of interactive discovery -- for everyone from gamers to scientists, and consumers to enterprise customers. For more information, please visit
www.nvidia.com.
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Contact Information Jet Perland Marketing Communications DCG Systems, Inc. jet_perland@dcgsystems.com