COLUMBIA, MD.—Rohde & Schwarz America and DA-Integrated announced a collaboration to develop an on-wafer RFIC production test system for RF and millimeter wave devices.
The system uses Standard ATE Production IC Test Systems at DA-Integrated along with Rohde & Schwarz’s R&S ZVA 67 GHz Vector Network Analyzer, or “VNA” (pictured) to create a robust volume production test system capable of handling advanced RF and millimeter wave integrated circuit devices. New RF and millimeter wave applications, such as 5G mobile, automotive radar, active array antennas, WiGig and other wireless broadband systems, require appropriate on-wafer production test capability as a complement to the production robustness, speed and cost structures associated with automated test equipment systems.
With IC technology moving to higher frequencies, design margins are shrinking, making the accuracy and precision of test instruments more critical in production testing. With this new system, customers benefit from the high volume scalability and robustness of the ATE system combined with the speed and accuracy of the Rohde & Schwarz vector network analyzer as required to test these new devices. Rohde & Schwarz vector network analyzers are designed to provide highly accurate and traceable results, all while maintaining the industry’s fastest measurement speed and highest port count for parallel testing.
“In addition to considering the capabilities of systems on our floor, it is also critical to ensure the systems are well deployed at outsourced assembly and test locations so customers have a path to very high volume production,” said Scott Bulbrook, co-founder and vice president of Engineering at DA-Integrated. “Our existing RFIC platforms have supported the 2 to 5 GHz range of RFICs for more than 10 years, but production worthy systems beyond that frequency range do not appear to be in the roadmaps of the primary ATE vendors. We felt it was time to develop this technology ourselves, and in collaboration with Rohde & Schwarz, we did.”
“We are very excited to be working with DA-Integrated in creating this new offering,” said Dr. Chris Scholz, product manager for Vector Network Analyzers at Rohde & Schwarz America. “By combining our advanced VNA technology with existing ATE systems, customers benefit from fast testing speed and scalability required by these new RFIC devices.”
