
SynTest Reduces the Cost of Semiconductor Testing
VirtualScan's compaction
technology extends life of existing ATE for large SOC designs
SUNNYVALE, California, Sept. 3, 2002 . Design-for-Test (DFT) leader
SynTest Technologies
today announced a software product called VirtualScan.
VirtualScan offers a significant reduction in the cost of semiconductor
testing by reducing test data volume, test run time and Automatic Test
Equipment (ATE) reloads. An evaluation on a 2-million gate circuit showed
a 15x reduction in test time.
VirtualScan employs a proprietary, patent-pending compaction technology
that allows existing ATE resources to apply ATPG patterns through each
external scan chain to a user-selectable, larger number of shorter internal
scan chains. Using a large number of short scan chains reduces test application
time and ATE memory storage requirement, without compromising product
quality and extends the utilization of existing ATE for larger chip sizes.
"We have been at the forefront of the fight to not let pattern size get
out of hand with our proprietary static and dynamic compaction technologies.
Hence, in spite of the ever increasing complexity and size of SOC designs,
our customers have been kept relatively immune to the exploding test costs,"
remarked Dr. L.-T. Wang, President and CEO of SynTest Technologies.
About Scan and Semiconductor Test
SOC semiconductor testing cost has been increasing steadily over the past
few years and is now a major part of the overall manufacturing cost of
chips. With the average SOC design size expected to grow to greater than
5 million gates in the near future, a new approach such as SynTest's VirtualScan
is needed to reduce test application time and test data volume.
What's VirtualScan
With SynTest's VirtualScan, an extremely large number of short scan chains
within the SOC can be virtually accessed from outside the chip with a
limited number of pins assigned as scan pins. Inside the chip, SynTest's
new patent-pending circuitry is used to broadcast each external scan-input
chain to a user-selectable number of internal scan chains and at the other
end, compact them into the original number of external scan chains.
VirtualScan contains an automatic synthesizer to incorporate the broadcaster
and compactor into the scan circuitry and uses broadcast ATPG technology
to generate test patterns. It also contains tools for scan insertion and
scan synthesis.
Integration into DFT/Test environments
VirtualScan does not require users to change their scan methodology. It's
fully compatible with SynTest's existing DFT tools such as TurboCheck
for DFT rule checking, TurboBISTMemory for BISTing embedded memories,
TurboBSD for boundary scan synthesis, TurboDFT for automatic
integration of DFT blocks, TurboFault for concurrent fault simulation,
as well as TurboDebug-SOC/Scan and TurboDiagnosis-Scan for debug, diagnosis
and failure analysis of scan chains.
VirtualScan also works with netlists that have scan inserted using other
popular scan-insertion tools.
Pricing and Availability
VirtualScan is currently available for beta-testing to select customers.
It is expected to ship
Q1/2003. Pricing beginning at US$250,000. An upgrade to VirtualScan is
available to licensees of SynTest's TurboScan, a scan synthesis
and ATPG product.
About SynTest
SynTest Technologies, Inc. develops and markets advanced DFT and Design-for
Debug/Diagnosis (DFD) tools, throughout the world to semiconductor companies,
ASIC designers and test groups.
Headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, the company has offices in Taiwan,
Korea and Japan. The Company's products improve an electronic design's
testability and fault coverage and result in reduced defect levels, reduced
costly tester time, and reduced slippage in time-to-market. These products
include tools for Built-in Self-Test (BIST) for logic and memory, boundary-scan
synthesis, DFT testability analysis, scan synthesis, ATPG, concurrent
fault simulation, silicon debug and diagnosis. More information is available
at www.syntest.com.
SynTest Technologies Inc. is headquartered at 505 South Pastoria Ave.,
Suite 101, Sunnyvale, California 94086, Phone: 408-720-9956, E-Mail: info@syntest.com
Acronyms:
ATE: Automatic Test Equipment
ATPG: Automatic Test Program Generation
BIST: Built-In Self Test
BSD: Boundary Scan Design
DFD: Design for Debug/Diagnosis
DFT: Design For Test
TurboBIST-Memory,
TurboBSD, TurboCheck-Gate, TurboDFT, TurboFault, TurboScan and VirtualScan
are trademarks of SynTest Technologies. All other company or product names
are the registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective owners.
For Immediate Release
Press Contact: Georgia Marszalek, ValleyPR for SynTest, 650-345-7477,
Georgia@ValleyPR.com
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