Category Archives: Advanced Packaging

Nanosys, enabling a new generation of high color fidelity, energy-efficient displays with its quantum-dot technology, today announced that it has expanded into a new, high-capacity production facility in Milpitas, California.

Nanosys’ new 60,000 square foot facility will produce over 1,000 kilograms of quantum dots per year- enough material to build more than five million 55" quantum dot televisions. As part of the expansion Nanosys expects to create more than 50 next-generation manufacturing jobs in the South Bay.

Nanosys’ latest product, Quantum Dot Enhancement Film (QDEF), is a drop-in optical component for LCDs that creates a richer, more lifelike color experience while consuming less power than alternatives. Nanosys is working closely with supply chain partner 3M to ramp deliveries as demand for QDEF from global display manufacturers increases.

"You’ve never seen anything like a quantum dot display," said Jason Hartlove, President and CEO of Nanosys. "We are working with display makers to create a new high color gamut display experience that is more cost effective, efficient and reliable than anything else currently on the market. The response from manufacturers so far has been great and demand for QDEF has grown to the point that we’ve had to significantly expand manufacturing to keep up."

The move was made official yesterday at a ribbon cutting ceremony attended by U.S. Congressman and long-time nanotechnology advocate Mike Honda of the 17th district and Milpitas Mayor Jose Esteves.

"Advanced manufacturing is a driving force creating Silicon Valley jobs, and I welcome Nanosys Inc.’s expansion to their new 60,000 square foot manufacturing facility in Milpitas," said Silicon Valley Congressman Mike Honda.  "As my Blue Ribbon Task Force on Nanotechnology made clear, nanotechnology offers Silicon Valley the opportunity to be at the forefront of technologically disruptive industries.  I applaud Nanosys for displaying the fortitude and ingenuity to grow from a startup to manufacturing commercial products, qualities that are so prevalent in Silicon Valley.  It is this kind of innovation that will keep the United States competitive in the global marketplace."

A year ago, the microtechnology, nanotechnology, and advanced materials industry looked out on the year 2012 with quite positive expectations. As it turned out, the unstable economic situation has left its mark on these industries, too. For 2013, at least, the companies expect a slight upwards trend.

At present, the mood of the industry is quite subdued, as the economic data survey of the IVAM Microtechnology Network confirms. In 2012, the business situation has been worse than expected in a third of companies. While orders and staff numbers have slightly risen and production has remained stable for a large proportion of companies, sales figures have dropped. The lack of funding for the strategic business development, expansion or investment in innovation is still an essential problem. Only 7 percent of companies had more funds available for corporate financing in 2012 than in the year before, only 16 percent have been able to invest more than in 2011.

Foreign trade has developed modestly in the last business year, thus continuing the trend of previous years. Throughout Europe, the export rates of the microtechnology, nanotechnology and advanced materials industry have remained rather stable in 2012.

In order to be able to compete the companies will attempt to enter the markets also via subsidiaries or cooperation. Markets of particular interest are the BRIC countries as well as countries that have recently been reclassified from emerging markets to industrial nations. Brazil, Russia, India and China as well as Israel, Taiwan and South Korea are countries which the companies want to enter in the short and medium term, e.g. by cooperative ventures or setting up branches.

In the European microtechnology industry, the business situation in 2012 has been worse than expected in a third of companies.

Imagine if you could drink a glass of water just by inserting a solid wire into it and sucking on it as though it were a soda straw. It turns out that if you were tiny enough, that method would work just fine — and wouldn’t even require the suction to start.

New research carried out at MIT and elsewhere has demonstrated for the first time that when inserted into a pool of liquid, nanowires — wires that are only hundreds of nanometers across — naturally draw the liquid upward in a thin film that coats the surface of the wire. The finding could have applications in microfluidic devices, biomedical research and inkjet printers.

The phenomenon had been predicted by theorists, but never observed because the process is too small to be seen by optical microscopes; electron microscopes need to operate in a vacuum, which would cause most liquids to evaporate almost instantly. To overcome this, the MIT team used an ionic liquid called DMPI-TFSI, which remains stable even in a powerful vacuum. Though the observations used this specific liquid, the results are believed to apply to most liquids, including water.

The results are published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology by a team of researchers led by Ju Li, an MIT professor of nuclear science and engineering and materials science and engineering, along with researchers at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Pittsburgh, and Zhejiang University in China.

While Li says this research intended to explore the basic science of liquid-solid interactions, it could lead to applications in inkjet printing, or for making a lab on a chip. “We’re really looking at fluid flow at an unprecedented small length scale,” Li says — so unexpected new phenomena could emerge as the research continues.

At molecular scale, Li says, “the liquid tries to cover the solid surface, and it gets sucked up by capillary action.” At the smallest scales, when the liquid forms a film less than 10nm thick, it moves as a smooth layer (called a “precursor film”); as the film gets thicker, an instability (called a Rayleigh instability) sets in, causing droplets to form, but the droplets remain connected via the precursor film. In some cases, these droplets continue to move up the nanowire, while in other cases the droplets appear stationary even as the liquid within them flows upward.

The difference between the smooth precursor film and the beads, Li says, is that in the thinner film, each molecule of liquid is close enough to directly interact, through quantum-mechanical effects, with the molecules of the solid buried beneath it; this force suppresses the Rayleigh instability that would otherwise cause beading. But with or without beading, the upward flow of the liquid, defying the pull of gravity, is a continuous process that could be harnessed for small-scale liquid transport.

Although this upward pull is always present with wires at this tiny scale, the effect can be further enhanced in various ways: Adding an electric voltage on the wire increases the force, as does a slight change in the profile of the wire so that it tapers toward one end. The researchers used nanowires made of different materials — silicon, zinc oxide and tin oxide, as well as two-dimensional graphene — to demonstrate that this process applies to many different materials.

Nanowires are less than one-tenth the diameter of fluidic devices now used in biological and medical research, such as micropipettes, and one-thousandth the diameter of hypodermic needles. At these small scales, the researchers found, a solid nanowire is just as effective at holding and transferring liquids as a hollow tube. This smaller scale might pave the way for new kinds of microelectromechanical systems to carry out research on materials at a molecular level.

The methodology the researchers developed allows them to study the interactions between solids and liquid flow “at almost the smallest scale you could define a fluid volume, which is 5 to 10 nanometers across,” Li says. The team now plans to examine the behavior of different liquids, using a “sandwich” of transparent solid membranes to enclose a liquid, such as water, for examination in a transmission electron microscope. This will allow “more systematic studies of solid-liquid interactions,” Li says — interactions that are relevant to corrosion, electrodeposition and the operation of batteries.

The research was supported by Sandia National Laboratories, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the National Science Foundation.

LCD panel makers in Taiwan, Japan and Korea have been suffering. Despite the growing demand for LCDs the high number of panel makers and new competition from China has resulted in tough price competition for panel makers, to the point that many panel makers are no longer profitable. In 2012, Samsung Electronics moved their LCD business units into a separate entity. One report suggests that the Taiwanese have invested $60 billion in the LCD industry and seen a return of just $40 billion. Some Japanese makers, despite having superb technology, have seen recent losses in some cases equal cumulative profits of the preceeding five to ten years. Restructuring is, therefore, afoot. In the last few weeks, Samsung purchased a three percent stake in Sharp. Japan Display Inc (JDI), puts together small and mid-sized LCD panel manufacture units from Sony, Hitachi and Toshiba, focusing on automotive, cellphone and digital camera displays (not TV). Meanwhile, the Chinese are quickly moving into LCD panel production. For many years the top five in the LCD business, in order, were Samsung, LG Display, Innolux, AUO and Sharp. Now, as evidence of China’s progress, in late 2012 Chinese BOE is No. 5 for notebooks and monitors and China Star (CSOT) No. 5 for TVs.

 All this has driven panel makers to seek differentiation. 3D capability was one – albeit with mixed consumer interest. Now, the hot topics are OLED and high resolution LCDs (4K).

OLED TVs pose a tough manufacturing challenge, but then the winners will be the ones to address the tough options. The current approach being taken by some of the leading panel makers are as follows, but the situation is fluid.

  • Samsung = RGB and polysilicon TFT backplane – recently announced it is reviewing other options
  • LG = white OLED with colour filters and IGZO TFT backplane
  • Panasonic = Inkjet printed RGB with CDT/Sumitomo materials + AUO TFT substrate
  • Sony = RGB Top emission and gap filters + AUO TFT substrate

The different approaches mean little cross fertilization of know-how or equipment. Certainly the Koreans have appeared to be a long way ahead, at least for smaller sized OLED displays, but for TVs perhaps not as far as one thought. The question is whether Panasonic or Sony have the appetite to make the large investments needed. Investments from Samsung and LG are as follows:

  • Samsung invested $4.8 billion in 2011, $6 billion in 2012, and will invest $4 billion in 2013. It has sold more than 100 million OLED displays used in the Galaxy S series alone
  • LG invested $225 million in 2010, planned investment of approx. $2.8 billion in 2012, of that $1.9 billion in R&D related to OLED.
  • The first OLED TVs are available from LG now – albeit priced at ~ $10,000. Sales will be limited at this price point for the immediate years.

The technically easier differentiation is to move to higher resolution LCD TV – e.g. 4K. Film makers are adopting suitable resolution cameras and so content will be available. Critics say that most cannot see the difference, but in reality consumers like to future proof as they expect a TV to last for many years – many bought HD TVs but still do not watch HD content. The higher resolution will benefit PC monitors and console gaming experiences too. In the short term, therefore, IDTechEx Research expects that 4K LCD TV sales – which will be more readably available – will sell more units than OLED TV.

OLED TV is undoubtedly promising but, as OLEDs for smaller sized displays – it will take longer than originally thought for these to become dominant, given the technical challenges faced. Given that many LCD makers are losing money, how will they fund investment in new innovation? Indeed, Taiwanese companies are asking the government now for financial help to fund R&D on OLEDs.

Those hoping that OLED TVs would result in new factories and new equipment orders may find the opportunities are not quite as big as they had hoped – with companies expected to repurpose existing aSi TFT plants to IGZO TFT manufacture. This looks good on paper, but switching a factory involves taking an otherwise revenue producing plant offline, and setting up and achieving a satisfactory yield is not trivial, as Sharp has recently found. Panel makers, having typically spent 65 percent of the cost of LCDs on the materials alone, have ambitions to move up the supply chain, even making materials.

 Potential scenarios for OLED TV

One scenario is that a small number of panel makers may come to dominate OLEDs – which could likely be Samsung and LG, both enjoying strong profits. Another is that the LCD industry repeats itself again with OLEDs – with many panel makers and therefore the inevitable range of profitable and loss making panel makers that go with it. One could postulate that the Taiwanese may not be a major player in OLEDs (and indeed their LCD businesses will see a shakeout); Japan’s conglomerates have the potential to be major players but it depends now on their ability to fund it as needed; which leaves the mighty two in Korea. And the Chinese.

The newest AVIA micromachining laser from Coherent, Inc. (Santa Clara, CA) delivers the highest power commercially available at its wavelength and repetition rate. Specifically, the AVIA 355-33 offers 33 Watts of output at 355 nm (at 110 kHz). This high power translates directly into increased production efficiency, thus lowering cost per part.

 The AVIA family of lasers has the longest track record of highly reliable, 24/7 operation in microelectronics manufacturing, and offers several features specifically designed to enhance its processing capabilities and minimize long term cost of ownership. These include ThermEQ, PulseEQ, and PulseTrack which enable precise control of the delivered pulse energy, allowing the OEM to define and optimize their laser process. The laser also has an automated harmonic crystal shifter to maintain constant output power for >20,000 hours and to maximize lifetime. In addition, the laser’s unique Posilock beam position sensor and feedback loop results in very high beam position stability over the life of the laser, thereby ensuring process consistency. 

 The AVIA 355-33 is targeted at a wide range of demanding, high-throughput microelectronics fabrication applications. Typical examples include via-hole drilling in printed circuit boards and flip chips and dicing and scribing of silicon wafers containing low-k dielectric materials.

coherent avia

Stung by plunging sales in Japan and declining demand in North America and Western Europe, global television shipments in 2012 fell, marking a major inflection point that will have a lasting impact on the market, according to an IHS iSuppli Worldwide Television Market Tracker Report from the IHS TV Systems Intelligence Service at information and analytics provider IHS.

Global shipments of all kinds of televisions in 2012 amounted to 238.5 million units, down 6.3 percent from 254.6 million in 2011. Shipments aren’t expected to rise back to the 2011 level until 2015, when they will amount to 253.1 million units.

Global TV market won't recover until 2015

“Television shipments in 2012 declined for the first time for more than a decade, sounding the coda for the flat-panel replacement wave that deluged the business throughout the 2000s,” said Tom Morrod, TV systems analyst at IHS. “This event marked a fundamental change in the growth trajectory of the market, with flat or minimal increases in shipments expected in the coming years—a sharp contrast to the double-digit increases seen prior to 2010. While some specific events contributed to the downturn of 2012, such as the fall of sales to the Japanese market, the decline reflects a fundamental slowdown in the television market, with liquid crystal display television (LCD TV) shipments falling for the first time ever. Although television shipments will stabilize in 2013 and growth will return in 2014, developed markets have become saturated with flat-panel televisions.”

Television market hits a wall in 2012

The TV market had been undergoing a slowdown prior to 2012, with shipments rising by 11.6 percent in 2010 and decelerating to 1 percent in 2011. By the beginning of this decade, most consumers in developed regions already had replaced their old cathode-ray tube (CRT) sets with flat-panel models, and many buyers in emerging economies had also made the switch. Combined with economic factors, and with issues related to government subsidies and the analog transition, the slowdown of the flat-panel replacement trend contributed to the major downturn in 2012.

The North American and Western European regions in 2012 both experienced significant shipment declines. Meanwhile, growth stalled in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and the Asia-Pacific region. Eastern Europe and China were the only regions to continue to enjoy rising shipments

The biggest reduction occurred in Japan, where shipments fell by 13.5 million units in 2012, accounting for the vast majority of the global decline of 16.0 million.

Point shaving

The decline in Japan was due to the end of the country’s “eco-points” subsidy program. Starting in mid-2009, the program gave consumers points for buying energy-efficient products—such as light-emitting diode (LED)-backlit LCD TVs. These points could then be redeemed to buy other items.

Between 2009 and 2011, eco-points generated an additional 25 million television sets sold in the Japanese market. With the revocation of this artificial stimulus, demand declined in 2012, and the Japanese TV market will continue to be severely affected for the next five years.

Regional woes

The decline in Western Europe was predominantly due to the economic situation, combined with the analog switch-off. Markets such as France, Italy and Spain have experienced severe declines following analog broadcast switch-offs in 2010 and 2011. At the same time, there were declines in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Portugal and Greece because of financial challenges.

There was, however, some growth generated by the more prosperous Central European nations, with Germany in particular still continuing to show impressive growth.

In North America, the decline was caused by a mixture of economic factors and by the fact that consumers had increased their demand in 2010 and 2011. By 2012, however, buyers had expended their disposable income for television purchases.

Meanwhile, the Asia-Pacific market stalled because of lower growth than expected in India, together with declining sales in established markets such as Australia.

The Middle East and Africa continued their overall growth, but strife in certain countries—particularly Syria—had a negative impact on television shipments.

Television market rebounds in 2014

In 2013, the global TV market will stabilize, with shipments remaining flat compared to 2012, as economic conditions even out. Shipments will rise by a scant 0.3 percent for the year.

However, shipments will return to growth in 2014 with a 2.8 percent increase. The Football World Cup, to be held in Brazil, will boost Latin America sales, while China is expected to continue to prosper.

By 2017, global television shipments will rise to 270.5 million units for a number of reasons—as Chinese manufacturers flood the Asia-Pacific markets with new models; as Japan, North America and Western Europe continue to recover; and as ultra-high-definition (UHD) and organic light-emitting diode (OLED) TV uptake becomes more affordable.

LCDs fall for first time

The LCD TV market fell for the first time ever on an annual basis in 2012, with shipments declining to 209.8 million units, down slightly from 211.3 million in 2011. However, shipments are expected to return to growth and continue expanding through 2017 as new technologies like Smart TV and UHD increases.

Plasma TV shipments fell to 13.1 million units in 2012, down from 17.9 million 2011. This is partly due to Panasonic significantly reducing its supply of plasma televisions, and partly due to large-sized LCD displays becoming increasingly cost effective. North America continues to be a stronghold for plasma, as does China, but all regions experienced an annual decline in shipments. By 2017, it is anticipated that Plasma will be a niche product, and that the market will have almost completely transitioned to LCD TV and to OLED.

CRT-TV shipments slid to 15.5 million, down nearly 40 percent from 25.2 million in 2011. Global CRT shipments will cease by 2016, IHS expects.

Quantum dots will cascade into the marketplace. They offer lower cost, longer life, and brighter lighting, according to WinterGreen Research’s  new study Quantum Dot and Quantum Dot Display (QLED) Market Shares, Strategy, and Forecasts, Worldwide, 2013 to 2019.  

“The commercialization of quantum dots using kilogram quantity mass production is a game-changer,” said Susan Eustis, WinterGreen analyst. “High quality, high quantity and lowest price quantum dots increase product quality in every industry. The rate of change means speeded products cycles are evolving.”

Once manufacturers learn to integrate higher efficiency luminescent quantum dots into their products, each vendor will need to follow or dramatically lose market share, reports WinterGreen. This level of change brought by quantum dot and quantum dot displays (QLED) represents a new paradigm that will create new industries, products and jobs in science and industry. The list of possible quantum dot applications is ever expanding. New applications are waiting for the availability of more evolved quantum dots.

Quantum Dot LED (QLED) commercial focus has remained on key optical applications: Optical component lasers are emerging as a significant market. LED backlighting for LCD displays, LED general lighting, and solar power quantum dots are beginning to reach the market. Vendors continue to evaluate other applications.

Quantum dots QDs are minute particles or nano-particles in the range of 2nm to 10nm diameter. Quantum dots are tiny bits of semiconductor crystals with optical properties that are determined by their material composition. Their size is small to the nanoparticle level. They are made through a synthesis process. QD Vision synthesizes these materials in solution, and formulates them into inks and films. Quantum Dot LEDs (QLED) enable performance and cost benefits.

The quantum dot cannot be seen with the naked eye, because it is an extremely tiny semiconductor nanocrystal. The nanocrystal is a particle having a particle size of less than 10nm. QDs have great potential as light-emitting materials for next-generation displays with highly saturated colors because of high quantum efficiency, sharp spectral resolution, and easy wavelength tenability. Because QDs convert light to current, QDs have uses in other applications, including solar cells, photo detectors, and image sensors.

QLED displays are anticipated to be more efficient than LCDs and OLEDs. They are cheaper to make. Samsung estimates that they cost less than half of what it costs to make LCDs or OLED panels. QLED quantum dot display is better than OLED. It is brighter, cheaper, and saves more energy. Energy-savings is a strong feature. Its power consumption is 1/5 to 1/10 of the LCD’s Samsung offers now. Manufacturing costs of a display are less than half of OLED or LCD. It has a significantly longer life than the OLED.

QLED quantum dot display uses active matrix to control the opening and closing of the pixels of each color. Quantum dots have to use a thin film transistor. Emission from quantum dots is due to light or electrical stimulation. The quantum dots are able to produce different colors depending on the quantum shape and size used in the production of materials.

Dow Electronic Materials, a business unit of The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW) and Nanoco Group plc (AIM: NANO) have a global licensing agreement for Nanoco’s cadmium-free quantum dot technology. Under the terms of the agreement, Dow Electronic Materials will have exclusive worldwide rights for the sale, marketing and manufacture of Nanoco’s cadmium-free quantum dots for use in electronic displays.

Pixelligent Technologies, a manufacturer of nanocrystal additives for the electronics and semiconductor markets, last week announced the launch of its PixClear Zirconia nanocrystals. When incorporated into existing products, the nanoadditives can dramatically increase light output and readability of modern touch screens and displays. PixClear, Pixelligent officials say, also increases the light output of products for lighting applications such as HB-LEDs and OLEDs.

Prior to Pixelligent, nanocrystal dispersions suffered from aggregation and were cloudy, difficult to process, and unstable, which prevented their commercial adoption. But Pixelligent officials claim their PixClear dispersions are something new: they’re perfectly clear. These clear dispersions allow Pixelligent to deliver precise control over the target applications’ optical, chemical and mechanical properties.

“Pixelligent is at the forefront of developing nanotechnology innovations that will revolutionize light management in display and lighting applications,” said Craig Bandes, President and CEO of Pixelligent.  “The launch of PixClear is a great example of our ability to identify a need in the industry and then create a high-quality and scalable solution that will dramatically impact the performance of numerous end-products.”

Pixelligent’s PixClear nanocrystal dispersions have been tailored to be compatible with a wide variety of monomers and polymers. PixClear’s synthesis and surface modification technology produces high-quality dispersions that can be incorporated into many of the most widely used polymer systems. This enables highly transparent formulations with nanocrystal loadings in excess of 80 percent weight, while reaching a refractive index as high as 1.85, levels that are unmatched in the industry to date. Additionally, it provides great flexibility for index matching dissimilar materials and when using modern high-speed polymer film forming techniques.  

In their official release, Pixelligent claims the advantages of PixClear nanoadditives include a high refractive index, high transparency at visible wavelengths, low haze coating, improve scratch resistance, and an easy integration into existing manufacturing processes.

Many users of microwave ovens have had the frightening experience of leaving a fork, crumpled piece of aluminum foil or some other pointy metal item inside the cooking chamber. The sharp metal object acts as an antenna for the oven’s microwave radiation, causing strong local heating or sparking. Jing Hua Teng from the A*STAR Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE) and colleagues in Singapore and the UK have now observed a similar antenna effect, involving a different sort of electromagnetic radiation — known as terahertz (THz) radiation — in a microfabricated semiconductor structure. Their discovery could find application in areas ranging from bio-sensing to airport security scanners.

Teng and his co-workers developed tiny semiconductor structures made of the chemical elements indium and antimony. From this material, they produced disks of 20mm in diameter, which they arranged such that pairs just touched. The gap between contiguous disks was merely tens to hundreds of nanometers wide (see image). When the researchers exposed the structures to THz radiation, they found that the radiation intensity in the gap was enhanced by more than a hundred times.

Confining and enhancing THz radiation is significant for two reasons, according to Teng. First, electromagnetic waves in the THz range can be used in a broad range of applications, for example, to study the structure of large biomolecules. As this sort of radiation can penetrate textiles but is less energetic than X-rays — or microwaves — it is also well suited for use in body scanners at airports. The second reason as to why the new results are important is more fundamental.

“We have produced this particular touching-disk structure to test, in the THz regime, intriguing theoretical predictions made for optical radiation,” explains Teng. “Building a device such as ours for visible light is much more challenging, as it would involve even smaller structures.”

The now-verified theoretical predictions came from collaborators at Imperial College London in the UK.

“For the present work, IMRE is in charge of the materials growth and the structure fabrication, while Imperial College contributes structure design and characterization,” says Teng.

The A*STAR researchers are now focused on practical applications: they will further explore the unique properties of their semiconductor materials and try to develop devices for THz technology. The group has already succeeded in tuning the THz response of their structure2, meaning that they can conveniently adjust the frequency response of their device for different applications.

Semiconductor test equipment supplier Advantest Corporation entered the high-growth market for testing MEMS-based sensors by installing V93000 Smart Scale systems at several of Freescale Semiconductor’s facilities around the world. In addition to using Advantest’s testers for engineering development at Freescale’s Sensor and Actuator Solutions Division engineering center in Tempe, Arizona, the semiconductor manufacturer has started to employ the V93000 platform in production testing of its newest generations of MEMS-based sensors being manufactured in Asia.

Advantest claims its Smart Scale platform can be configured to provide the lowest cost of test for high-volume sensors. Officials says that while the ultra-compact A-Class test head enables a small footprint, the V93000’s robust system resources and its processor-based universal pin architecture combine to deliver unmatched parallelism and high multi-site efficiency in testing all current and emerging sensor technologies.

The tester is equipped with drivers for all major MEMS handlers and can communicate with the handler during the test flow. This is a key performance attribute in testing MEMS, which requires the handler to move between different orientations during test runs.

"In extensively evaluating testers for its MEMS applications, Freescale conducted comparative reviews of various systems to find the solution that would meet its technical requirements," said Sae Bum Myung, executive vice president of worldwide sales at Advantest.

The Advantest V93000 tester has a successful track record with Freescale. The company contracts with outsource semiconductor assembly and testing (OSAT) facilities throughout Asia that are using V93000 systems.

"Using Advantest’s V93000 systems in MEMS testing will enable us to continue to lower our cost of test and improve the time to market for our newest sensor products," said Seyed Paransun, vice president and general manager of Freescale’s Sensor and Actuator Solutions Division.

Advantest officials say the V93000 platform has the flexibility to test a wide range of semiconductor devices used in a variety of applications, from sensors to wireless communications. The tester’s per-pin accuracy and high throughput enable customers to quickly ramp to production volumes, shortening their time to market.