Synopsys has announced that automotive IC suppliers worldwide are standardising on its manufacturing test solution to achieve their goals for lower defective parts per million (DPPM), reduced test costs associated with digital and mixed signal designs, and in system self test to ensure functional safety. Semiconductor companies, including Dialog Semiconductor, Intersil, MegaChips, Micronas and others, have successfully deployed Synopsys synthesis based test on their automotive ICs and shipped millions of devices. Adoption continues to grow rapidly as recent innovations in Synopsys’ DFTMAX and TetraMAX ATPG, such as pin limited test compression, advanced fault models and logic built in self test, enable automotive IC suppliers to consistently achieve their quality, cost and safety goals on schedule.
Designers of automotive ICs face three key challenging manufacturing test requirements. First, the tests must execute quickly to be cost effective, even when few test pins are available. To minimise test time and cost for pin limited and mixed signal designs, DFTMAX Ultra synthesises test compression circuitry, utilising as few as one pair of test pins. Second, ICs for automotive systems must be tested for the highest quality, often requiring less than one DPPM. To achieve this goal, TetraMAX generates test programs that target a wide range of silicon defects using state of the art fault models that incorporate the designs’ timing and physical characteristics provided by links across the Synopsys Galaxy Design Platform. Finally, safety critical designs must be able to routinely perform in system self test in compliance with the ISO 26262 automotive functional safety standard. To address this requirement, the Synopsys BIST solution synthesises on chip circuitry that enables quick in system testing.
“Synopsys is responding to the needs of a growing number of IC suppliers to ensure their designs are compliant with automotive requirements, including the ISO 26262 standard,” said Bijan Kiani, vice president of marketing for Synopsys’ Design Group. “Our synthesis based test solution enables designers to meet these requirements and utilises value links across the Galaxy Design Platform to maximise designer productivity.”
