IC analysis service alliance

Integrated Measurement Systems and Schlumberger Probe Systems have announced a joint initiative to provide IC debug and characterisation using latest generation debug and validation products.

Integrated Measurement Systems and Schlumberger Probe Systems have announced a joint initiative to provide IC debug and characterisation services using latest generation debug and validation products.

The service couples IMS' Vanguard 500MHz IC validation system with the Schlumberger IDS PICA probe system, to provide customers access to state-of-the-art technology while minimising capital investment.

These systems provide engineers developing the most advanced IC designs with a high speed, completely interactive diagnostic and debug system to accelerate their time to market.

The Schlumberger IDS PICA probe system is the first and only commercially available tool to use advanced PICA (Picosecond Imaging Circuit Analyser) technology licensed from IBM, harnessing light emissions to track electrical signals as they travel through semiconductor devices.

The IDS PICA system can help speed new products to market by dramatically easing the difficult and time-consuming process of gathering timing data and finding faulty areas of leading-edge IC designs.

The IMS Vanguard IC validation system offers up to 500MHz/1Gbit/s datarates with up to 512 I/O channels and provides an easy to use, interactive validation platform to stimulate devices being analysed by the IDS PICA system.

IMS' Vanguard is designed to direct dock to the IDS PICA system for easy setup and high bandwidth.

The Vanguard/IDS PICA system can be operated from a single common workstation and a number of software test development and data analysis tools are provided for the customer.

The Vanguard/IDS PICA system enables the user to accurately stimulate a device, while capturing the light emissions from the active CMOS transistors without invading the device operation.

Since it analyses signals emanating from the device itself, the IDS PICA instrument can probe devices of any size circuit geometry with unmatched accuracy.

"Products like IMS' Vanguard and the Schlumberger IDS PICA are breakthroughs in IC debug capability.

They are technology-enablers for customers who are pushing process technology to 0.13-micron and SOI.

The IDS PICA/Vanguard combination offers the customer a flexible solution capable of rapidly debugging these problems in a high-speed high-accuracy totally noninvasive massive observation approach.

Offering the two products combined, in a Service business, with on-site applications expertise available to the customer is a great way for customers to quickly get access to this capability while still keeping capital costs low", stated Jack Frost, General Manager of IMS' SoC Validation Division.

"One of our goals is to bring the IDS PICA technology to a large audience, including fabless customers.

Forming an alliance with IMS gives our customers the benefits of state-of-the-art probing technology, along with the flexibility and performance to get critical answers quickly.

A key benefit of this venture is to colocate application teams in order to provide a one-stop solution", stated Michel Villemain, Vice President, Probe Systems, Schlumberger Semiconductor Solutions.

The service includes customer support, device preparation and training to create an extensive device IDS PICA performance database.

The service also provides a software license for offline analysis of the performance.

Device fixturing, pattern translation and test optimisation services are also available.

The first service centre will be opening in July in San Jose, California.

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