ATE platform to support mass production of ASICs

The investment in the newly installed Advantest V93000 Smart Scale platform enables ICsense engineers to perform advanced analogue, mixed-signal and high voltage testing, bringing their design and test programming process entirely in-house.

“There are only a few IC design houses in the world and, typically, these companies design custom chips internally but do not necessarily have the in-house resources to execute on the steps that follow,” explained Bram De Muer, Co-Founder and CEO, ICsense. “It takes several years to develop a custom IC. The team that develops the chip knows it inside out, making it vitally important that the test development team is also in-house to bring the product to mass production successfully.”

The close interaction with the IC design team assures that the Design for Test (DfT) and the development of the production test are better aligned. ICsense’s highly systematic and efficient workflow ensures high product quality and significantly minimises the risk of defects in mass production later on for the customer.

As the most prominent ASIC design house in Europe, ICsense employs more than 90 in-house design engineers at its headquarters in Leuven, Belgium.

“Unlike aggregation partners that just bring together different companies to do the work without creating additional value, ICsense has all the required profiles in house. Only with the right mix of talented analogue and digital design teams, test development team, quality engineers, functional safety experts, ESD/EMC specialists, and product engineers can a company successfully design products for mass production,” added De Muer. “We believe that this is a unique service offering to the industry, enabling us to support our customers from design concept through to mass production.”