Test outsourcing - a subcontract manufacturer's perspective

The growing test outsourcing business is characterized by a number of challenges. Production loading is nonlinear primarily due to market conditions, but also due to yield and wafer availability. This creates periods of high demand where there is a shortage of capacity and operations cycle times increase, or limited loading where the Subcontract Manufacturer (SCM) has difficulty maintaining profitability. Test operations are faced with a myriad of test requirements--from supporting multiple customers and products, maintaining and operating numerous types of testers, handlers and probers, as well as managing different tester configuration requirements based on product test needs, test strategy or simply load board layout. When test setup is protracted due to long test program load times, calibration, correlation or retest, the SCM’s effective loading decreases and cycle time increases. Moreover, all this activity must be managed within an environment of constant price pressure from the market and effective capital cost growth.