ProPlus Design Solutions, Inc., announced it is shipping a new wafer-level, 1/f noise measurement system. Increasingly, circuit designers are interested in 1/f noise data at higher frequencies. They are concerned also about variation effects at leading-edge process nodes, increasing the need for statistical noise models. Generating statistical noise models requires massive amounts of data collection that is particularly challenging at low frequencies.

The 9812D low-frequency 1/f noise measurement system is designed to measure low-frequency noise characteristics of on-wafer or packaged semiconductor devices, including MOSFETs, bipolar junction transistors (BJTs), junction field effect transistors (JFETs), diodes and diffusion resistors. In addition to frequency domain measurement, 9812D can measure device noise in the time domain and can be used to perform on-wafer auto measurement for flicker (1/f) noise and Radom Telegraph Signal (RTS) analyses.

9812D improves upon 9812B, the company’s 1/f measurement system used for more than a decade by foundries, integrated device manufacturers (IDMs) and research organizations. The system, which has a frequency range that exceeds 10 Megahertz (MHz), has a built-in dynamic signal analyzer (DSA) with multi-threaded processing for improved performance and reduced cost.

“Noise is a key figure of merit for semiconductor process quality and also an intrinsic characteristic impacting circuit performance,” said Dr. Zhihong Liu, executive chairman of ProPlus Design Solutions. “To meet the new challenges at 28 nanometer and beyond, we worked with leading foundries on significant improvements of the 1/f system.”

Wafer fabrication facilities use 7*24 1/f noise measurement data to assess process quality. A three-to-10X throughput improvement of the 9812D system means faster data collection and early detection of process issues.