While failure analysis for semiconductor manufacturing has long been to examine failed components returned to the manufacturer, this methodology is expanding to testing new silicon designs. In a Semiconductor Engineering article, Pressure Builds On Failure Analysis Labs, Emerson’s Robert Manion and other industry professionals share their insights on this trend.
On the challenge for faster time to market with reliability, Robert notes that the:
…speed at which our customers are able to align test results from different stages of the workflow will speed the rate at which they’re able to introduce their product to market…
Managing failure data in a centralized way is critical to meet this challenge. Robert explains that Emerson’s:
…perspective comes as a group that sees parts come in after they’ve seen failures — all the way back to the validation and first silicon bring-up into quality and reliability groups, production test, and failure analysis… By having a common data repository and set of tools to search and gather and view that data, they’re able to look at when they see defects and failures in the field. Then they can tie back some of the manners in which they failed — or the data they’ve gathered on those failed parts — to things like the exact lots that part might have been a part of when it went through production test, or the specific design and some of the validation or characterization data they saw when it was going through initial silicon bring-up. Hopefully, what that does is inform smarter testing to address failures earlier.
Read the article for other perspectives on increasing reliability and reducing time to market. Visit the Semiconductor Solutions on Emerson’s NI.com website for more ways to uncover failure causes faster, including before first silicon is produced.
Note: Emerson acquired NI, a leading provider of software-connected automated test and measurement systems, in October 2023 as part of its newly formed Test & Measurement business.
