NI Week 2018 brought together a wide community of engineers, scientists, and industry professionals to both educate and discuss the current trends in the Test and Measurement industry. As part of the event, NI announced three new products that have advanced its testing capabilities in the recent past:
LabVIEW 2018: grants test engineers the ability to simplify system integration and gives them more control through hardware accessibility. It allows them to focus more on offering unique differentiation and ultimately reduce the time to market.
FlexLogger: allows for test configurations to be simplified and enables key insights to be extracted and logged in a systematic manner – all with no programming required. These advantages allow for test development o be streamlined and display NI’s data management expertise.
Instrument Studio™:supports the other products by introducing intuitive debugging on a real-time basis during testing for modular instruments. IT allows test engineers to monitor test execution as they occur, thus helping to streamline the debugging process.
Electronics Maker caught up with David Hall, Head of Semiconductor Marketing at National Instruments, at NI Week2018 as he discussed the state and future of the semiconductor test industry today. Excerpts below:
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Can you discuss the semiconductor design and manufacturing trends today?
The world around us is changing, with technology getting a lot smarter. A smartphone is far more than just a phone;it is a super computer, a primary interface to the web, a social media device, a way to control a smart home, and so much more. As the devices we use get smarter, they become more software centric, and the semiconductor industry that is powering these smart devices is going through a transformation, not only in how the ICs are designed and manufactured, but also in how they are tested.
Regardless of the type of smart device, the business drivers are the same. IC makers must deliver more integrated functionality, ensure the highest reliability for mission-critical applications, remain highly cost competitive, and ensure a short time to market to meet tight design windows. IC manufacturers need a smarter approach to test not just to survive but to thrive.
Semiconductor test is a strategic focus area for NI, and we are privileged to work closely with many innovators in this industry. We understand that success in this industry means offering ICs that are always increasing in functionality, ensuring high quality, and competing with aggressive prices while fitting within tight market windows. This makes for a challenging and exciting market for us.
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What are the recent challenges in semiconductor test?
One of the opportunities for National Instruments is that over the last 10 years, we’ve seen larger semiconductor organizations change the way they do testing both for R&D, as well as production test. Specifically, in the R&D lab 10 years ago, a lot of the characterization testing was done by the engineers and developers at the business unit. If your job is analog engineer, you develop a PMIC or a power amplifier, and you get the part back, you plug it in and see if it works. It’s your part. You test it, and if it works, you’re good! If not, you’ve got to do some revision.
That process historically has become more time-consuming in part because of the integration and packaging associated with new semiconductor components. Many of our customers are competing with each other by delivering more integration in a single package, more ports, more connections, higher complexity.
Another thing we’re seeing is requests for a higher volume of data sets and more data points when doing lab characterization, especially for chipsets for highly regulated industries, like automotive. They want larger sample sets and they want more volume of chips earlier so they can evaluate them. This is another driver for automation in the lab, because we may need to do 40 chips instead of just one. They definitely do need higher levels of automation. In the past, simply automating the set of instrumentation, but also automating the handling of the device. We’re seeing more needs for handlers in the lab that can automate the handling of the chips, as well as the testing of the chips, which does provide opportunities for our Semiconductor Test System in the lab. NI delivers smarter test solutions that scale from the lab to the production floor and meet the business needs of IC manufacturers.
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What is your outlook for the semiconductor Test industry and its growth?
We are on the brink of the next generation of wireless communication, the IoT is growing in deployments every year, and autonomous vehicles are within reach. And as once disparate technologies continue to converge, our devices are growing smarter. The semiconductor industry plays a monumental role in realizing a better future encompassing all these elements. With NI’s platform-based approach, technical capability, and consistent investment, we feel that we are in a unique position to partner with you in the semiconductor supply chain. I cannot think of a smarter approach to test than our platform.
