The need for highly integrated manufacturing test equipment

Next generation ICs for multimedia, mobile communications, will demand efficient, integrated manufacturing, testing processes and equipment. New IC applications serving mobile communications, multimedia and personal digital products will by the middle of this decade create significant changes in semiconductor production and test. Smaller geometries and larger wafers create the requirements for highly stable manufacturing conditions, a contamination-free environment, and very precise equipment. New fabrication construction costs for these ICs will exceed $1 billion per facility, forcing IC producers to look at alternatives from cluster manufacturing to new packaging efficiencies. In addition, functional testing will need to move as far forward in the production process as possible, in order to remove bad product early and cut costs. Testing will be integrated as seamlessly as possible into the manufacturing process. This paper explores manufacturing and test issues pertinent to the production of the new generation of ICs, focusing on the trends in new production and test equipment that is already beginning to show up in advanced facilities and will proliferate by the year 2000