July 26, 2007 — SUSS MicroTec AG, supplier of wafer-level test systems for semiconductor devices, has launched the iVista high-resolution digital microscope. SUSS says that the microscope’s introduction follows rapid changes to device design implemented by manufacturers in response to economic and technological drivers. The company notes that these changes challenge all test engineers, who are now faced with small pads, high numbers of contact pads and extremely complex circuitry.

The iVista promises to significantly improve the productivity of operators and engineers. SUSS says it delivers images with sharpness comparable to a 16-megapixel, color CCD. This means that even the tiniest features are quickly and easily identifiable and up to 40x digital zooming provides more detail and not just a pixilated image.

The iVista microscope allows the user to save the full-resolution image and the multi-view screen for documentation. It also provides accurate point-to-point measurement and navigation using standard objectives, which eliminates the need to buy additional objectives or auto-recognition adapters.

The iVista enables several additional software features in the SPECTRUM Vision System from SUSS. Multi-view allows the user to create several freely-defined regions that are magnified and displayed alongside the main view, enabling live observation of specified areas without losing the “big picture”. Multi-cam imaging displays a live image from a separate camera alongside the live image from the iVista microscope. The user can then, for example, monitor contact height with the view from the patented ContactView system while observing the position of the wafer and probe tips.

The system can be fully integrated with SUSS semiautomatic probe stations for wafer navigation but can also be used with a manual station or as a stand alone microscope.