Parametric test system supports wide bandgap fabrication

The S530 platform enables semiconductor fabs to add parametric test capacity for high-growth new technologies while minimising CAPEX investment and maximising wafers per hour efficiency.

This reduced overall cost of ownership profile helps manufactures meet aggressive price pressures in competitive new markets.

New semiconductor products based on emerging wide bandgap (WBG) technologies such as GaN and SiC offer the promise of faster switching speeds, wider temperature ranges, better power efficiency, and other benefits.

To meet testing needs for these products, the KTE 7-based S530 platform delivers lab-grade measurement performance with minimal set-up and test time.

High-speed, fully flexible configurations up to 1100V can evolve as new applications emerge and requirements change.

This allows chip manufacturers to cost-effectively and efficiently expand into high-growth power and WBG devices (including the automotive market), with minimal test/set-up time, on a single system, and with minimal investment.

“Analogue and mixed-signal semiconductor manufacturers continue to experience strong demand from new end-use applications in 5G communications, automotive, IoT, medical, green energy, and other markets,” says Chris Bohn, vice president and general manager at Keithley/Tektronix. “This significant test platform update helps those customers bring new products to market more quickly and cost-effectively, while giving them the agility to adapt to new requirements in the future.”

Innovations to the S530 Series maximise tester utilisation over a wide product mix, and easily migrate existing test software, probe cards and other items, while offering full data correlation along with significant speed improvements.

The S530-HV model enables testing up to 1100V on any pin to boost throughput by 50 percent or more over competitive systems in power and WBG applications.

Chip manufacturers can test a wide mix of products with a single system, including automotive products per the IATF-16949 quality management standard.

Calibration can be performed with minimal downtime in-house or through Tektronix’s worldwide service organisation.

The KTE7-based platform offers semiconductor manufacturers a cost-effective migration path from legacy S600 and S400 systems, preserving full data correlation along with throughput improvements up to 25 percent faster than the S600.

An optional test head for the S530-HV eliminates the operator time needed to change the instrumentation, probe card, and cabling test setup when moving from low voltage (<200V) to high voltage (>200V) wafer-level tests.

The testhead enables probe card compatibility with multiple models from multiple vendors for faster probe card changing and to-the-pin calibration per ISO-17025, while maintaining backward compatibility.

This minimises migration costs and protects customer investment, while supporting new requirements such as automotive standard IATF-16949.

The S530-HV enables testing up to 1100V on any pin to boost throughput by 50 percent or more over competitive systems in power and WBG applications. Operators can connect any test resource to any test pin in any sequence to quickly and easily support production requirements without reconfiguring or re-tooling signal paths.

KTE software compatibility greatly simplifies and speeds up the migration path from legacy systems such as the S600, achieving full correlation with up to 25 percent faster throughput.

Built-in transient over-voltage / over-current protection prevents accidental damage to probe cards, needles, and instrumentation - which is especially critical in high speed WBG applications.

During system calibration, the new 5880-SRU System Reference Unit automatically switches all DC and AC reference standards, thus eliminating the need to manually connect, disconnect, and reconnect.

This fully automated process greatly reduces system downtime and resulting support costs when performing calibration, resulting in a lower COO profile.

The S530 Series Parametric Test System is now available worldwide.