June 5, 2012 -- The Full Service Foundry business unit of ams (austriamicrosystems AG) today announced an extension of its dedicated test solutions. This move is an extension of the company's "More Than Silicon" initiative, under which ams provides a package of intellectual property, cell libraries, consultancy and testing services to help customers successfully develop advanced analog and mixed-signal circuit designs based on its specialty technologies.

Foundry customers using ams' IC test service will receive KGD (known good die) and instantly gain the benefit of zero yield risk, as their complex analog/ mixed-signal ICs are 100% electrically tested according to their own test specifications. The electrical test can be performed at the wafer level (i.e., wafer probing), on assembled parts (also including advanced packages such as wafer-level chip-scale packages, or WLCSP) or at both levels.

The offering starts with an in-depth design-for-testability (DFT) analysis carried out jointly with experienced design-support engineers from ams. Test program code development can be accomplished quickly using ams' production-proven test code library and off-line tester simulator debugging. An independent and dedicated professional test team with a combined 25+ years of experience offers remote debug sessions to shorten debug and development cycle time. As an integral part of its EEPROM IP portfolio ams also offers a programming service, so the customer has no need to program its EEPROM block after delivery of the die. This may significantly reduce the programming efforts for the end customer. A prototype load board and application board are developed by load board designers with analog, RF and mixed-signal experience. Utilizing ams' patented hardware technology ensures right-first-time load board designs that match the expected performance criteria. The test program release procedure comprises careful correlation between the test results from production tests and application bench tests, full temperature qualification and statistical analysis of thetest solution through the implementation of gauge repeatability and reproducibility tests.

ams' dedicated test service is supported by an integrated project-management process including weekly test-status updates. Once volume production has started, test data are automatically uploaded to the customer's FTP site.