NXP chooses Hamamatsu as strategic electrical fault isolation partner

New optical probing technique from Hamamatsu first to address electrical characterization challenges faced by mixed signal, analog, and memory drive semiconductor manufacturers.

News provided by

Hamamatsu Corporation

Jun 08, 2016, 09:00 ET

BRIDGEWATER, N.J., June 8, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Hamamatsu Corporation announced the first bulk, six unit purchase of its EOP/EOFM (Electro-Optical Probing/Frequency Mapping) capability by NXP, the leading semiconductor supplier for the Automotive, Digital Networking, and Secure Identification industries. Hamamatsu's EOP/EOFM was chosen because its unique waveform digitizer and incoherent light source based architecture allow for the measurement of previously undetectable circuit timing signals.

As technology node leaders, CPU manufacturers for years have relied on optical probing for debug and characterization of difficult-to-see functional state faults in their integrated circuits. Optical probing is now beginning to see heavy adoption by mixed signal and memory device manufacturers as they move to smaller technology nodes and faster peripheral circuits. Hamamatsu's EOP/EOFM technique is the first system designed to go beyond simply measuring clock and data frequencies in processor chips to detecting timing signals associated with memory access and analog circuitry. This next generation analysis capability will bring the benefits of optical probing – shorter time-to-yield and high correlation rate to the physical defect – to a larger portion of the semiconductor market.

As a known early adopter, NXP had run an EOP/EOFM pilot evaluation with Hamamatsu already in 2012 in the NXP Nijmegen facility. "When we learned that Hamamatsu gathered waveforms using a digitizer that could record up to 500,000 samples we hoped that we could see non-periodic signals in that span of data that went undetected by previous oscilloscope based tools. We've been able to confirm this breakthrough during the technical evaluation of EOP/EOFM and are excited to have this as a standard capability across several NXP labs," said Kent Erington Senior Principal Engineer of Product and Technology Enablement at NXP's Austin facility.

"There is a perception that most process related electrical faults are sorted out between the fabs and their advanced node customers – making devices such as server chips, CPUs, and graphics processors," said Hitoshi Iida, Managing Director of Hamamatsu's Systems Division. "But at smaller technology nodes mixed signal companies are increasingly tripped up by process related faults unique to their devices and are requiring the same suite of characterization capabilities and at comparably high resolution. Optical probing continues to be limited not by the underlying physics of the technique but by narrowly implemented capabilities. As these usability constraints are removed we expect to see significantly wider adoption."

EOP/EOFM is the latest addition to the PHEMOS and iPHEMOS line of electrical fault isolation systems, which have found wide adoption for technology development, design debug, yield ramp, yield enhancement, and customer return failure analysis. Most all PHEMOS and iPHEMOS systems are field upgradable to include this technique in conjunction with others such as OBIRCH, emission, DALS/SDL, LADA, and thermal. For more information, visit the Hamamatsu Photonics K.K. web page.

About Hamamatsu Corporation
Hamamatsu Corporation is the North American subsidiary of Hamamatsu Photonics K.K. (Japan), a leading manufacturer of devices for the generation and measurement of infrared, visible, and ultraviolet light. These devices include photodiodes, photomultiplier tubes, scientific light sources, infrared detectors, photoconductive detectors, and image sensors. The parent company is dedicated to the advancement of photonics through extensive research. This corporate philosophy results in state-of-the-art products which are used throughout the world in scientific, industrial, and commercial applications.

About NXP
NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NASDAQ: NXPI) enables secure connections and infrastructure for a smarter world, advancing solutions that make lives easier, better and safer. As the world leader in secure connectivity solutions for embedded applications, NXP is driving innovation in the secure connected vehicle, end-to-end security & privacy and smart connected solutions markets. Built on more than 60 years of combined experience and expertise, the company has 45,000 employees in more than 35 countries and posted revenue of $6.1 billion in 2015. Find out more at www.nxp.com.

SOURCE Hamamatsu Corporation