Effective Screening of Automotive SoCs by Combining Burn-In and System Level Test

Abstract

Automotive systems must reach a high reliability in their electronic components. This kind of devices must undergo several tests and stress steps discovering all possible defects that could manifest during lifetime. Burn-In (BI) is a manufacturing test phase used for screening the early life latent faults that can naturally affect a population of devices. System Level Test (SLT) is increasingly adopted as one of the final steps in the testing process of complex Systems on Chip (SoCs) mimicking the operational conditions. This paper aims at describing the motivations for and the effectiveness stemming from combining SLT with BI. The key idea leverages on the development of a new step inside the test process, which reproduces the system using SLT and places the system in the worst cases by means of the BI. Moreover, the paper analyses the required tester architecture to merge SLT and BI. Finally, an industrial case by STMicroelectronics is used to demonstrate the possible cost reduction.