A successful model of a mobile device can ship in excess of 100M units per year, and each smartphone has over 10 complex SOC devices. If each of those devices is tested thoroughly enough to ensure only 100 defect units escape per million devices sold (100 DPPM), the smartphone manufacturer could still end up with 100,000 defective phones and tens of millions dollars of lost revenue. Therefore, leading mobile device manufacturers have begun to demand lower and lower defect rates from semiconductor suppliers.
One possible source of these defects is overstressing the device during the test process due to incorrect programming of the ATE instrumentation. Due to the complexity of today’s test programs, static code analysis is not always able to catch these types of errors. RTA allows test engineers to specify safe device-specific operating conditions limits for each pin in the device. When auditing is turned on, RTA will monitor the state of the device pins and the ATE to make sure those rules are not violated. Auditing can be done on sample lots prior to production or during production using random sampling.
“RTA was developed in partnership with one of our major customers to
help them continue to improve their product quality levels," said
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