NIWOT, Colo., July 8 CO-STC-Working-Groups
NIWOT, Colo., July 8 /PRNewswire/ -- The Semiconductor Test Consortium,
Inc. (STC), the leading proponent of the development and adoption of
value-added open test standards that benefit the semiconductor industry, today
announced that they have created two new working groups and expanded the
charter of an existing working group. The STC has now created seven working
groups in total-to meet industry interest and demand. 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
the automated test equipment (ATE) environment. This effort will enable rapid
integration of the more than 1500 PXI, and other instrument types (VXI, LXI,
and etc.), into the ATE environment. Specifically, 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 environment.
The STC created the Yield Enhancement Working Group to work
collaboratively with other standards bodies to develop an industry standard
tester interface for third party software tools. Keith Arnold, Pintail
Technologies' Chief Technical Officer will chair this new working group. The
group's 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 is also expected to substantially reduce the effort required to port
any third party software tool across multiple tester platforms.
Adoption of IEEE STIL standard continues with international acceptance of
this standard. In line with the expanding adoption of STIL, the STC has
decided to expand their STIL working group participation and charter. The
working group's new chairs are from Renesas in Japan and Synopsys in the U.S.
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
user around the world, including Japan's STIL based Semiconductor Test Action
Group (SSTAG), in order to identify any specification gaps. The ultimate goal
is to enable a broader adoption of the IEEE specifications amongst 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-from docking
and interface, to PTIM-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."
The STC will be exhibiting in booth #8235 (West Hall, Level 2) at SEMICON
West 2008, July 15-17 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, Calif.
About the Semiconductor Test Consortium
The Semiconductor Test Consortium (STC) 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 the following goals: formalizing
a broadened STC scope with new working groups and specification structure;
fostering pre-competitive 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.
SOURCE Semiconductor Test Consortium, Inc.
