Production Test and Design for Test

Course developed by: Michael Moitzi, Institute of Electronics, TU Graz
Contact: michael.moitzinoSpam@tugraz.at

Course Description
The course provides an introduction into the fundamentals of production testing and design for test. According to Moore’s law the shrinking feature sizes led to an increasing integration density in manufactured integrated circuits. With these Very-Large Scale Integration (VLSI) chips not only designers face new challenges but also test engineers. Conventional test approaches, where the testing was considered after the design was already finished, can no longer be applied due to their bad scaling properties. Therefore, a new design approach, the design for testability, was introduced, where during the design process both testing and performance are considered. This increases the number of potential defects that can be detected during testing as well as saves overall production cost as the main contributor to that nowadays is the amount of time it takes to test a chip as well as the yield. This lecture will give you a very detailed guideline on how to design your chips and measurement to get the most out of testing.

As part of a broader electronic system development framework, this course is developed within the GreenChips-EDU project, a European Union initiative focused on sustainable and energy-efficient microelectronics education. In this context, the course includes a dedicated module on circular design principles and source management, aimed at increasing awareness of the environmental impact of electronic components and promoting sustainability-aware decision-making throughout the design and development process. By integrating testability, reliability, and sustainability considerations, the course provides students with a holistic perspective on modern electronic system design.

Learning Objectives
After successfully completing the course, students will be able to:

• Calculate the process yield
• Describe the implications of defect clustering
• Explain the most important differences between ideal and real tests
• Calculate the defect level
• Explain how the failure rate is related to the time and what burn-in means
• Explain the rule of ten
• Specify the most important aspects related to test cost