The rise and fall of the ATE industry

For the semiconductor industry to continue to achieve its product quality and life cycle goals, ATE manufacturers need to re-think system architecture. Conventional ATE system software creates an initial state for the complex digital circuits that execute a test, and later reports results. But during the execution of a test, conventional ATE system software lies inactive, awaiting completion of the test system hardware´s arcane dance. If the ATE manufacturers are able to draw on the lessons learned over several decades in the parallel computing industry, then future ATE will include system software that manages test system hardware resources dynamically at a fine grain throughout test execution. Such flexibility of test system operation is an improvement dimension that is not reflected in the SIA Roadmap. Flexibility opens the door to increased functional capability, reduced time-to-market for families of ATE, reduced hardware costs, and simplified test development. Improvement in this new dimension will allow ATE to achieve the SIA´s long-term performance projections