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A G R E AT E R M E A S U R E O F C O N F I D E N C E with the skills needed to develop new elec-
trical test methodologies for new materials
and translate the volumes of data these tests
will produce into usable process knowledge.
While this level of expertise is often avail-
able in the lab environment, it's often diffi-
cult to transfer that knowledge to the produc-
tion setting. In order to remain competitive,
test suppliers and fabs will need to form even
deeper partnerships and cooperative devel-
opment initiatives in order to create new test
methodologies to ramp up new processes
based on new materials.
One of the first steps test vendors must
take in helping the industry adjust to the
new materials and new test methodologies is
Strategic Fabrication
working with fabs to better distinguish be-
tween commodity testing and value-added
or strategic testing. The perception within
Demands
the IC industry is that the cost of test per
device is staying steady or increasing while
the cost of processing per device is drop-
Strategic Testing ping. While this may, in fact, be true for
functional testers, which typically have pro-
prietary designs and aren't repurposable for
new devices, it's far from true for parametric
test and device characterization/parametric
Linda C. Rae, Senior Vice President and General Manager analysis solutions. Today, the most far-sight-
Keithley Instruments, Inc. ed parametric test vendors understand that
their customers are increasingly unwilling or
A
unable to afford to replace their testers after
S the demand for low power through device scaling. In fact, performance several technology nodes. Instead, they offer
mobile devices continues to gains attributable to the use of new materi- test platforms that separate the repurposable
drive down device voltages, it's als were equal to those attributable to device "commodity" portions of the system (system
become increasingly difficult to scaling for the first time at the 90nm node. As controller, power supplies, basic DC instru-
produce devices that operate in a 45nm processes inch their way toward pro- mentation, prober, test head, etc.) from the
stable manner within narrower performance duction, IC makers continue to push devices "strategic" portion (modular instrumenta-
margins, even when they're produced with based on their new materials into production tion and fixtures designed to handle func-
well-understood processes and materials like at mind-numbing rates. Unlike traditional Si/ tions like AC impedance, RF, pulse, and
Si/SiO2 /polysilicon/Al. Helping fabs address SiO2 /polysilicon/Al materials systems, these reliability testing). Separating the commod-
this challenge demands that test vendors new processes often include less electrically ity portion of the system from the strategic
deliver new, more sensitive electrical test stable materials, like sSOI/high k/metal/Cu/ portion allows fabs to span multiple technol-
methodologies