STC Continues to Grow and Address Industry Demands With the Addition of Multiple Working Groups
NIWOT, CO, July 8, 2008
The Semiconductor Test Consortium (STC), the leading proponent of the development and adoption of value-added open test standards that benefit the semiconductor industry, has created two new working groups and expanded the charter of an existing working group. The STC now has seven working groups in total. The newly created and expanded working groups are centered on portable test instrument module (PTIM), yield enhancement, and the standard test interface language (STIL).
The STC formally kicked off the PTIM Working Group with the charter to leverage the broad set of existing open standard test instruments for use in ATE. This effort will enable rapid integration of the more than 1,500 PXI and other instrument types such as VXI and LXI into the ATE environment. Specifically, the PTIM main focus will be to develop guidelines and standards to facilitate a common hardware and software interface and to accelerate the integration of these new instruments into the ATE industry.
The STC created the Yield Enhancement Working Group to collaborate with other standards bodies to develop an industry-standard tester interface for third- party software tools. Keith Arnold, Pintail Technologies' CEO, will chair this new group. The initial focus will be to provide a common tester interface for yield enhancement tools although provisions will be made to support other types of tools. The effort is expected to enable performance enhancements that will be required for the industry's rapidly expanding production data volume. This standard also is expected to substantially reduce the effort required to port any third-party software tool across multiple tester platforms.
Adoption of the IEEE STIL standard continues with international acceptance. In line with the expanding adoption of STIL, the STC has decided to expand its STIL working group participation and charter. The group's new chairs are from Renesas in Japan and Synopsys in the United States. Working group efforts to date include benchmarking STIL readers, development of a STIL validator and test suites, and promotion of STIL tools.
The working group's scope now encompasses the worldwide use of the IEEE STIL specifications. Central to this objective is collaborating closely with STIL users around the world, including Japan's STIL-based Semiconductor Test Action Group (SSTAG), to identify any specification gaps. The ultimate goal is to enable a broader adoption of the IEEE specifications among EDA, ATE, and semiconductor companies.
"At this year's Global STC Conference, our main focus was to investigate collaborative solutions to address today's most current test challenges," explained STC Manager Bob Helsel. "Through this synergy, we concluded that, while we have working groups spanning the semiconductor industry, the expansion of some of these working groups and the creation of new working groups is imperative to fully support and enable the STC ecosystem."
About the Semiconductor Test Consortium
The Semiconductor Test Consortium was founded in 2003. Open to all companies throughout the semiconductor supply chain with a vested interest in the test sector, the consortium is focused on formalizing a broadened STC scope with new working groups and specification structure, fostering precompetitive collaboration among industry participants toward development of value-added standards, emphasizing the value of work being accomplished and the contributions to the industry, and continuing efforts to fully enable the STC Ecosystem through its OPENSTAR(R) and STIX(TM) initiatives. Today, 31 semiconductor, equipment, and instrumentation companies worldwide; 44 university members in Europe, Japan, China, and the United States; and 11 individuals support the STC. More information can be found at
http://www.semitest.org/ .