Tester addresses advanced display driver IC trends

27th October 2014

Mick Elliott

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There are three key trends in testing the next generation of display driver ICs that control high resolution LCD panels, and Advantest has launched its new T6391 system to meet these requirements. The new tester will address the growing number of pins on display driver devices, the increasing speeds of interfaces and highly integrated multi-functions – all of which contribute to higher resolution displays.

It is the highly integrated nature of advanced DDIs that present the test challenges.

Because the touch-sensor functions of an LCD are integrated in the DDI, there are a large number of logic/analogue circuits to test. In the foreseeable future, power-management IC (PMIC) functions also are likely to be folded into the DDI. Additionally, the growing use of LCD panels in mobile applications including smart phones, tablet computers and notebook PCs is driving market demand for smaller device sizes and more capabilities.

Advantest’s new tester is able to handle all of these current and projected test requirements. It leverages the same engineering environment model as the existing base of more than 1,500 previously installed testers in the T6300 series. It uses the same TDL programming language while improving throughput by achieving faster data transfer and calculation.

The high-speed bus enables high-throughput testing. With 512 I/O channels, the tester is capable of testing multiple chips simultaneously. It can accommodate high-resolution DDIs having as many as 3,584 LCD pins. This is enough to test today’s highest pin count LCDs including full high-definition (HD), WXGA and HD720 displays.

It can handle I/O pin frequencies up to 1.6 gigabits per second (Gbps), allowing it to test DDIs that use MIPI (mobile industry process interface), the standard protocol for mobile electronics. An additional measurement module allows the system to test even faster interfaces up to 6.5 Gbps, which will be used in the LCD drivers for the next generation of ultra-high-definition televisions including the 4K (2160p) generation.

A 16-channel arbitrary waveform generator (AWG) and a digital capture feature provide the ability to test analogue ICs. Scan and memory tests of touch-sensor-enabled DDIs can be conducted using the system’s scan pattern generator (SCPG), algorithmic pattern generator (ALPG) and address fail memory (AFM) module.