Mentor and ASSET Intertech Do a DFT World Tour

Mentor and ASSET Intertech Do a DFT World Tour
by Beth Martin on 02-19-2015 at 1:01 pm

The Mentor Graphics test folks and ASSET Intertech have teamed up to provide a series of free DFT seminars in the US, Europe, and Asia. The first one is in Austin, TX on February 19, 2015, and the last is in Tokyo on April 24. Hereis the full list of locations and dates.

The morning session covers IJTAG. The new IEEE 1687 Internal JTAG (IJTAG)… Read More


Physically Aware DFT Improves PPA

Physically Aware DFT Improves PPA
by Pawan Fangaria on 02-16-2015 at 7:00 pm

Introducing on-chip test circuitry has become a necessary criteria for an ASIC’s post manufacture testability. The test circuitry is usually referred as DFT (Design-for-Test) circuit. A typical methodology for introducing DFT circuit in a design is to replace usual flip-flops with special types of flip-flops called ‘scan… Read More


Improve Test Robustness & Coverage Early in Design

Improve Test Robustness & Coverage Early in Design
by Pawan Fangaria on 11-03-2014 at 5:00 pm

In a semiconductor design, keeping the design testable with high test coverage has always been a requirement. However with shrinking technology nodes and large, dense SoC designs and complex logic structures, while it has become mandatory to reach close to 100% test coverage, it’s extremely difficult to cope with the explosion… Read More


A Complete Scalable Solution for IP Signoff

A Complete Scalable Solution for IP Signoff
by Pawan Fangaria on 10-20-2014 at 7:00 am

In an SoC world driven by IP, where an SoC can have hundreds of IP (sourced not only from 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] party but also from internal business units which can have a lot of legacy) integrated together, it has become essential to have a comprehensive and standard method to verify and signoff the IP. Additionally, these checks must … Read More


What’s next in test compression?

What’s next in test compression?
by Beth Martin on 10-10-2014 at 4:45 pm

If you’ll be at ITC TestWeek in Seattle (Oct 20-23), here’s one event you don’t want to miss: a technology reception hosted by Mentor, with Janusz Rajski and Nilanjan Mukherjee as the featured speakers. It is free to ITC attendees and you can register here. [If for some crazy reason you haven’t registered for ITC yet, do that… Read More


SmartScan Addresses Test Challenges of SoCs

SmartScan Addresses Test Challenges of SoCs
by Pawan Fangaria on 09-04-2014 at 4:00 pm

With advancement of semiconductor technologies, ever increasing sizes of SoCs bank on higher densities of design rather than giving any leeway towards increasing chip area and package sizes; a phenomenon often overlooked. The result is – larger designs with lesser number of pins bonded out of ever shrinking package sizes;… Read More


Ceaseless Field Test for Safety Critical Devices

Ceaseless Field Test for Safety Critical Devices
by Pawan Fangaria on 06-03-2014 at 3:00 am

While focus of the semiconductor industry has shifted to DACin this week and unfortunately I couldn’t attend due to some of my management exams, in my spare time I was browsing through some of the webpages of Cadenceto check their new offerings (although they have a great list of items to showcase at DAC) and to my pleasure I came across… Read More


Taming The Challenges of SoC Testability

Taming The Challenges of SoC Testability
by Pawan Fangaria on 05-12-2014 at 10:00 pm

With the advent of large SoCs in semiconductor design space, verification of SoCs has become extremely challenging; no single approach works. And when the size of an SoC can grow to billions of gates, the traditional methods of testability of chips may no longer remain viable considering the needs of large ATPG, memory footprint,… Read More


Smart Strategies for Efficient Testing of 3D-ICs

Smart Strategies for Efficient Testing of 3D-ICs
by Pawan Fangaria on 02-12-2014 at 6:30 am

3D-IC has a stack of dies connected and packaged together, and therefore needs new testing strategies other than testing a single die. It’s given that a single defective die can render the whole of 3D-IC unusable, so each die in the stack must be completely and perfectly tested before its entry into that stack. Looking at it from a … Read More


Mentor Seminar: Evolution of diagnosis-driven yield analysis

Mentor Seminar: Evolution of diagnosis-driven yield analysis
by Beth Martin on 10-08-2013 at 1:20 pm

It’s a fact that new process nodes come with some amount of yield challenges. One way to find and eliminate silicon defects is through diagnosis-driven yield analysis (DDYA), which is the topic of a free seminar by Mentor Graphics in Fremont this Thursday, October 10 from 11:30am – 2pm (yes, lunch is included because Mentor… Read More