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Soitec, a designer and manufacturer of semiconductor materials for the electronics industry, has appointed Stephen Lin to the newly created position of vice president of strategic business development in China, a key region for the company’s future growth plans. Stephen Lin brings to Soitec nearly 30 years of experience leading semiconductor business operations in China and the U.S.

“Working with our executive team, Stephen is in charge of strengthening Soitec’s business interests within China as well as growing market demand for SOI wafer products,” said Thomas Piliszczuk, Soitec’s executive vice president, Business and Strategic Development. “Stephen will be instrumental in our efforts to continue growing China’s microelectronics ecosystem as he works closely with our customers as well as government agencies, institutions and the financial and investor communities.”

China is home to all key elements of the electronics value chain including semiconductor manufacturers, fabless device designers, and consumer end markets. Soitec is already highly engaged in China, working to expand the semiconductor ecosystem while also driving demand for silicon on insulator (SOI) wafer products with its direct and indirect customers. The company also collaborates closely with its Shanghai-based manufacturing partner Simgui and the National Silicon Industry Group (NSIG), which recently invested in Soitec.

Since beginning his semiconductor career at LSI Logic, Stephen Lin has held senior executive positions within several major electronics companies including NXP Semiconductors, Microsemi, Intel and Siemens. He also has launched start-up companies in China and the U.S. including Mobility Ventures. He earned his master in electrical engineering degree from McGill University in Quebec and his MBA from Santa Clara University in California. He is the author of multiple publications including “The Fabless Semiconductor China Handbook.”

Synopsys, Inc. (Nasdaq:  SNPS) today announced that its IC Validator was successfully deployed on some of the industry’s largest and most advanced designs to accelerate design rule checking (DRC) closure. Through near-linear distributed processing and efficient resource management, IC Validator delivers industry-leading turnaround time, enabling physical signoff within hours on designs with 10 billion+ transistors. Technology advancements in the latest releases of IC Validator reduce both memory and disk usage requirements by 2x. This significant improvement in resource efficiency enables excellent performance scaling to several hundreds of CPUs by taking advantage of the smaller and more readily available machines in the customers’ existing compute farms.

“Increasing manufacturing complexity at advanced nodes makes it challenging for customers to complete physical signoff within schedule,” said Bijan Kiani, vice president, product marketing, Design Group at Synopsys. “Through high-performance scalability and readily available, optimized runsets from all major foundries, IC Validator is providing our customers with the fastest path to production silicon.”

IC Validator, part of the Synopsys Digital Design Platform, is a comprehensive and highly scalable physical signoff solution including DRC, LVS, programmable electrical rule checks (ERC), dummy fill and DFM enhancement. IC Validator is configured for today’s extremely large designs by enabling 8 CPUs with a single license. It uses both multi-threading and distributed processing over multiple machines to provide near linear scalability benefits that extend to several hundreds of CPUs. IC Validator enables coding at higher levels of abstraction and is architected for scalability to maximize utilization of mainstream hardware, using smart memory-aware load scheduling and balancing technologies.

IC Validator is a companion product to Synopsys IC Compiler™ II In-Design physical signoff. In-Design allows place-and-route engineers to perform independent signoff-quality analysis earlier, before the design is finalized and while correction can be automated. In-Design technology enables new high-productivity functionality within the place-and-route environment, including automatic DRC repair, improved timing quality-of-result with timing-aware metal fill, and rapid ECO validation. In-Design physical signoff eliminates expensive iterations with downstream analysis tools and maintains a convergent design flow to physical signoff.

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (“SMIC”; NYSE:  SMI; SEHK: 0981.HK), China’s largest and most advanced semiconductor foundry, today announces the appointment of Dr. Haijun Zhao as CEO replacing Dr. Tzu-Yin Chiu, who will continue to serve as Vice Chairman and Non-Executive Director of the Board and guide the Company’s future strategic direction. In addition, Dr. Chiu will serve as a full-time advisor until June 30, 2017, working closely with Dr. Zhao to ensure a seamless transition of leadership responsibilities.

Dr. Zhao joined SMIC in October 2010 and has moved quickly through the company’s ranks. In April, 2013, he became Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer. In July, 2013, he also assumed the role of General Manager of SMNC, SMIC’s joint venture in Beijing. Dr. Zhao received his B.S. and Ph.D. in Electronics Engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing, and an MBA from the University of Chicago. He has more than 25 years of experience in semiconductor operations and technology development.

Dr. Zhou Zixue, Chairman of the Board said, “We are pleased to have Dr. Zhao, as nominated by Dr. Chiu, as the Company’s new CEO, to lead the Company forward. Also, I want to express my sincere appreciation to Dr. Chiu for his invaluable contributions to the Company. Dr. Chiu, in the past six years, has done an incredible job of turning around the Company, regaining the confidence of our stakeholders, and repositioning the Company as a leading player in the global foundry industry.  Due to personal family reasons, he has decided to step down at this time. SMIC will remain a global, professional and independent company. With the solid management team which Dr. Chiu has already put in place at SMIC, I am fully confident of the Company’s future prospects.”

“It has been an honor to lead the team to transform SMIC over these past years,” said Dr. Tzu-Yin Chiu. “The Board and I are confident that now is the right time to transition leadership responsibility, and Haijun is the right leader for SMIC’s next chapter of growth. Since joining SMIC seven years ago, Haijun has been an invaluable leader and was a part of the executive team which brought about the transformation in these past few years. SMIC benefits from an outstanding management team with a diverse range of experienced leaders and thousands of dedicated employees. I would like to thank the Board and my SMIC colleagues for their support. I will continue to serve the Company as Vice-Chairman and Non-Executive Director on the Board and contribute to its continued growth and success.”

Dr. Haijun Zhao, SMIC CEO said, “I am greatly honored to have the opportunity to lead the SMIC team at this exciting moment in our history. I would like to thank Dr. Chiu for his guidance and mentorship, as well as the Board for their trust. I look forward to working with the Board and the management team as we continue to enhance our competitive position in the foundry markets.  As a global and independent foundry player, we are committed to deliver results benefitting our shareholders, customers and employees.”

UnitySC, a developer of advanced inspection and metrology solutions, today announced multiple orders from a leading integrated device manufacturer (IDM) for its modular 4See Series automated defect inspection platform. The systems were selected because they deliver optimal wafer backside surface and edge defect inspection, post thinning and metallization. The 4See Series will be used for automotive applications by a market leader in power semiconductor manufacturing to improve the reliability and performance of its products.

“Being selected by a market leader validates the strength of our solutions and confirms our strategy to address new markets with our advanced process control solutions,” said Gilles Fresquet, CEO, UnitySC. “This win expands our reach beyond the traditional substrate control market to include wafer thinning for power semiconductors.”

IHS Markit predicts USD $3 billion in global market growth for the power semiconductors used in cars and light passenger vehicles, over the next six years. Increasing electronic content is a key driver, particularly in hybrid and electric cars, due to consumer demand for constant connectivity. The automotive industry’s push to deliver autonomous, green vehicles in the next decade is also driving growth. These technologies rely on the latest power semiconductor devices, enabled by advanced wafer manufacturing processes like wafer thinning.

“As the wafers used in power semiconductor manufacturing become thinner, controlling wafer quality through the backside thinning and metallization process steps becomes more critical to end-device performance and reliability,” noted Fresquet. “For years, manufacturers have considered our Deflector module be the best-in-class solution for silicon and silicon-on-insulator wafer slip line detection. Combined with the Edge module, this 4See Series configuration delivers industry-leading inspection capabilities that meet semiconductor market needs.”

UnitySC’s new 4See Series for all-surface inspection of semiconductor wafers is a modular system with up to three module offerings: Deflector, Edge and LineScan. The platform can be configured according to application needs, such as wafer thinning, µbumping, MEMS, and more, and can include any number of the modules in desired configurations.

  • Based on phase shift deflectometry technology, the Deflector module is a wafer surface inspection solution that achieves high throughput and very high vertical sensitivity in the nanometer range. It can detect slip lines, grinding marks, failures, cracks, comets, embedded particles, residue, and stains. The Deflector module is well suited to frontside and backside inspection, even under highly warped conditions.
  • The Edge module is a high throughput and versatile solution based on confocal chromatic technology, which is used to inspect the full wafer edge: top, top bevel, apex, bottom bevel and bottom. It has a high depth of focus and does not require a backside contact chuck.

Combining the Deflector and Edge modules in one system offers full wafer characterization compliant with 8″ or 12” wafer high-volume manufacturing requirements. The 4See Series is scheduled to ship in Q3 2017 to fab locations around the world.

SiFive, the first fabless provider of customized, open-source-enabled semiconductors, today announced it has raised $8.5 million in a Series B round led by Spark Capital with participation from Osage University Partners and existing investor Sutter Hill Ventures. This Series B round brings the total investment in SiFive to $13.5 million. The funding comes as SiFive experiences a growing demand for RISC-V IP and increased interest in custom silicon.

SiFive was founded by the inventors of RISC-V – Krste Asanovic, Yunsup Lee and Andrew Waterman – with a mission to democratize access to custom silicon. In its first six months of availability, more than 1,000 HiFive1 software development boards have been purchased and delivered to developers in over 40 countries. Additionally, the company has engaged with multiple customers across its IP and SoC products, started shipping the industry’s first RISC-V SoC in November 2016 and announced the availability of its Coreplex RISC-V based IP earlier this month.

“At Spark Capital, we believe technology is the great equalizer. SiFive’s singular goal of putting custom chips into the hands of everyone from startups to exploratory design teams to inventors with a healthy crowdfunding campaign resonates with our core values,” said Todd Dagres, general partner at Spark Capital, who will join the SiFive board of directors. “We are excited at the potential for SiFive to enable new and emerging sectors to bring innovative solutions to market that might otherwise never see the light of day.”

RISC-V has developed a strong ecosystem of more than 60 companies including Google, HPE, Microsoft, IBM, Qualcomm, NVIDIA, Samsung, Microsemi and others. Member companies, as well as third-party open-source contributors, are actively contributing to a maturing stable of software and toolchains, including GCC and binutils, both of which have been upstreamed. SiFive maintains an easy to install toolchain, SDK and BSPs with binaries of the latest open source tools, including OpenOCD, GNU Debugger, Arduino IDE and the Eclipse integrated development environment. More updates are expected at the 6th RISC-V Workshop this week in Shanghai.

This Series B financing comes amid a string of significant milestones for SiFive in the past year:

  • Product Innovation: SiFive launched its Freedom Everywhere platform – designed for microcontroller, embedded, IoT and wearable applications – and its Freedom Unleashed platform – for machine learning, storage and networking applications – in July 2016. At the 5th RISC-V Workshop in November, SiFive announced general availability of the Freedom Everywhere 310 (FE310) SoC and the HiFive1 software development board.
  • Industry Recognition: SiFive was recognized as the Startup of the Year by the 2016 ACE Awards. Its contributions to the open source community were noted by the Linley Group’s Analyst Choice Awards, which named RISC-V its Technology of the Year for 2016. Additionally, the seminar computer architecture textbook, “Computer Organization and Design,” has been updated to include RISC-V in the latest edition, which was released in April.
  • Customer Adoption: Earlier this month, SiFive launched its Coreplex IP and announced a growing ecosystem of partners, including Faraday, Microsemi and United Design Systems, making SiFive Coreplex IP available to their downstream customers.
  • Company Growth: SiFive’s employee base has grown more than 280 percent to support the development of its Freedom Everywhere and Freedom Unleashed SoCs, as well as the launch of its E31 and E51 Coreplex IPs. SiFive’s leadership team continues to grow with key engineers from Altera, ARM, Atmel, Cadence Design Systems, Cisco, Intel, Juniper, Marvell, Nvidia Qualcomm, Synopsys and Xilinx.

“We are energized by the partnerships we have forged with our investors and their strong belief in SiFive’s mission,” said Jack Kang, vice president of product and business development at SiFive. “This investment will enable our continued growth for years to come, and will allow SiFive to further establish that alternatives really matter in an era where traditional silicon vendors no longer are the most innovative in the industry.”

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), representing U.S. leadership in semiconductor manufacturing, design, and research, today announced worldwide sales of semiconductors reached $30.9 billion for the month of March 2017, an increase of 18.1 percent compared to the March 2016 total of $26.2 billion and 1.6 percent more than the February 2017 total of $30.4 billion. Sales from the first quarter of 2017 were $92.6 billion, up 18.1 percent compared to the first quarter of 2016 but down 0.4 percent compared to the last quarter of 2016. All monthly sales numbers are compiled by the World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) organization and represent a three-month moving average.

“Global semiconductor sales saw solid sales growth in March, increasing sharply compared to last year and more modestly compared to last month,” said John Neuffer, president and CEO, Semiconductor Industry Association. “Global sales are up 18 percent compared to last year, the largest increase since October 2010, with all major regional markets posting double-digit year-to-year growth. All major semiconductor product categories also experienced year-to-year growth, with memory products continuing to lead the way.”

Year-to-year sales increased across all regions: China (26.7 percent), the Americas (21.9 percent), Asia Pacific/All Other (11.9 percent), Europe (11.1 percent), and Japan (10.7 percent). Month-to-month sales increased in Europe (5.0 percent), Japan (3.6 percent), Asia Pacific/All Other (2.9 percent), and China (0.2 percent), but decreased slightly in the Americas (-0.5 percent).

March 2017

Billions

Month-to-Month Sales                               

Market

Last Month

Current Month

% Change

Americas

5.99

5.96

-0.5%

Europe

2.82

2.96

5.0%

Japan

2.77

2.87

3.6%

China

10.05

10.07

0.2%

Asia Pacific/All Other

8.77

9.02

2.9%

Total

30.39

30.88

1.6%

Year-to-Year Sales                          

Market

Last Year

Current Month

% Change

Americas

4.89

5.96

21.9%

Europe

2.67

2.96

11.1%

Japan

2.59

2.87

10.7%

China

7.95

10.07

26.7%

Asia Pacific/All Other

8.05

9.02

11.9%

Total

26.15

30.88

18.1%

Three-Month-Moving Average Sales

Market

Oct/Nov/Dec

Jan/Feb/Mar

% Change

Americas

6.33

5.96

-5.8%

Europe

2.80

2.96

5.6%

Japan

2.84

2.87

0.9%

China

10.17

10.07

-0.9%

Asia Pacific/All Other

8.86

9.02

1.7%

Total

31.01

30.88

-0.4%

Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU) announced today that the board of directors has appointed Sanjay Mehrotra as president and chief executive officer and a member of the board of directors, effective May 8, 2017. Mehrotra succeeds Mark Durcan and joins Micron at a time of increasing opportunity for memory and storage technologies and solutions as the key enablers for the next-generation of computing architectures.

“Sanjay has an outstanding track record of business success and exceptional knowledge of the memory and storage industry,” said Robert E. Switz, chairman of the board of directors and a member of the CEO selection committee. “His experience in markets ranging from consumer to enterprise make him uniquely qualified to lead Micron into the future.”

Mehrotra was a co-founder of SanDisk and served as its president and CEO from 2011 to 2016. He drove the growth of the company from a start-up in 1988 to an industry-leading Fortune 500 company with revenues that reached $6.6 billion, and ultimately culminated in a sale for $16 billion to Western Digital Corporation in 2016.

His team pioneered a diversified and comprehensive portfolio of flash storage solutions that included removable products, embedded mobile solutions, client and enterprise solid state drives and innovative enterprise system solutions. He also initiated and guided a highly successful 17-year joint venture partnership with Toshiba in NAND Flash memory technology development and manufacturing.  In addition, he established and ran key manufacturing operations in China, Taiwan, Japan and Malaysia.

“Innovation in memory and storage technology is enabling new products, improved customer experience and growth across multiple markets,” said Mehrotra. “Micron is at the forefront of driving these innovations, and I am thrilled to have the opportunity to lead such a talented global team.”

Durcan will step down as CEO and from the Micron board of directors effective May 8, 2017, but will serve as an advisor to the company until early August. “Mark has made an immense contribution to Micron and to the semiconductor industry at large over his 32 years at the company and 5 years as CEO,” noted Switz. “We wish him all the best in his future endeavors.”

SPTS Technologies, an Orbotech company and a supplier of advanced wafer processing solutions for the global semiconductor and related industries, announced today that it has been awarded the coveted Queen’s Award for Enterprise in International Trade 2017. The award recognizes SPTS’s substantial year-on-year growth in overseas earnings and commercial successes in its global business. In addition to judging outstanding achievement in international trade, the judging panel also assessed SPTS’s on its corporate responsibility, which included employee affairs, customers and suppliers relationships, and its impact on the environment and society.

“We are extremely proud to be recognized with the Queen’s Award for Enterprise in International Trade for the second time,” stated Kevin Crofton, President of SPTS Technologies and Corporate Vice President at Orbotech. “We have a global organization of dedicated employees that makes our international business possible. This award belongs to the entire organization – from those involved in the development and manufacture of our industry leading wafer processing solutions to our team outside the UK who sell, install and support our products and customers. Our customers are many of the leading device manufacturers in the microelectronics industry, who rely on us day in and day out to perform and help them be successful. Our growth is a testament to the quality and competitiveness of UK developed technologies and products in the global markets.”

Economy Secretary, Ken Skates said: “Huge congratulations to SPTS Technologies on their second Queen’s Award for Enterprise. They are a prominent global business that makes an important contribution to our economy which is why we have awarded them Anchor status.”

“I am so pleased SPTS’s growth in overseas earnings and its continuing commercial success have been recognized once again by this prestigious award. A focus on exporting is more important now than ever before as we transition out of the EU, and success stories such as this show that companies in Wales can more than step up to the challenge.”

The Queen’s Awards for Enterprise are the UK’s most prestigious business awards, given only to companies or individuals who are outstanding in their field. Previously known as the Queen’s Awards to Industry, the first Awards were given in 1966.

Headquartered in Newport, Wales, SPTS Technologies exports more than 95% of its products manufactured in the UK and has surpassed its £1 Billion in export sales milestone. SPTS has manufacturing facilities in Newport (UK), Allentown (USA, Pennsylvania), San Jose (USA, California), and operates across 19 countries in Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific.

T.J. Rodgers, founder and former CEO of Cypress Semiconductor Corporation (NASDAQ:  CY) and the Company’s largest individual stockholder, today filed a lawsuit in the Delaware Court of Chancery seeking to compel the Cypress Board of Directors to make supplemental and corrective disclosures to address numerous material omissions and misstatements of fact in the Cypress Board’s proxy materials.

Rodgers said, “Cypress directors have a legally mandated ‘Duty of Candor’ to make complete disclosures to Cypress stockholders on the issues in this election, including why they are allowing Ray Bingham to serve as executive chairman while he has violated and is continuing to violate numerous provisions of Cypress’s Code of Business Conduct and Ethics.  This second lawsuit seeks to ensure that Cypress stockholders have the information they need to cast an informed vote at the upcoming June 8, 2017 Annual Meeting.”

Bingham’s employment by a Cypress competitor is an ongoing conflict of interest 

While simultaneously serving as Cypress executive chairman, Mr. Bingham is also actively working as a “Founding Partner” of Canyon Bridge, a private equity firm backed by the People’s Republic of China that now competes head-on with Cypress in the critical semiconductor M&A market. The Cypress Board has asserted in the Company’s proxy statement that Mr. Bingham’s simultaneous executive leadership roles at Canyon Bridge and Cypress do not constitute a conflict of interest under the Cypress Business Conduct and Code of Ethics and thus claims that Rodgers’s assertions are “unfounded and have no basis.”

Rodgers said, “I believe that by making this assertion in an important legal document distributed to stockholders, the Cypress Board of Directors has deliberately chosen to ignore our first, successful lawsuit to obtain Cypress documents and thus solicited Cypress stockholders using material misstatements and omissions including the failure to disclose critical legal findings made by the DelawareCourt of Chancery.  In particular the Court stated:

“The dual hats Bingham wears suggest that his interests with respect to Canyon Bridge may well conflict with the business interests of Cypress,” and that a “credible basis” exists “to infer that Bingham violated the Code’s prohibition on ‘simultaneous employment of any kind without written permission of the Company.'”

Rodgers continued, “Cypress stockholders have a right to accurate and complete information before voting at the annual meeting, yet the Cypress Board continues to ignore its Duty of Candor by misleading stockholders regarding Mr. Bingham’s conflicts as well as the Board’s own failure to address this serious problem, which it has known about at least since December 9, 2016 when I wrote a private letter describing the problem and urging Board action.”

In addition to having a conflict of interest, Mr. Bingham also has negotiated excessive compensation for his part-time work at the currently unnecessary job of executive chairman. His annual salary plus target bonus is $877,500, and he has been granted a total of $4.5 million in restricted stock units (RSUs). Despite Mr. Bingham’s part-time attendance at Cypress, the Cypress Board has kept him on as executive chairman and has very recently awarded him RSUs worth $3 million, which vest over three years, undermining the Board’s claim that Mr. Bingham’s executive chairman “mentoring” position is “temporary.” To make matters worse, in stark contrast to all Cypress executives eligible for the Company’s PARS (Performance Accelerated Restricted Stock) program, his RSUs vest without any performance requirements – meaning that Mr. Bingham will receive $4.5 million in compensation for simply remaining at Cypress in a part-time position, while also working for a direct Cypress Chinese-sovereign-backed competitor.

On April 21, 2017, the Delaware Court of Chancery entered an order requiring Cypress to produce documents in response to Rodgers’s Section 220 demand to investigate potential breaches of fiduciary duty and violations of Cypress’s Code of Business Conduct and Ethics by Ray Bingham and the failures by the Cypress Board to take corrective action. The Court’s Post-Trial Opinion, issued on April 17, 2017, held that Rodgers was entitled to all the categories of documents that he sought but which Cypress had refused to produce.

Rodgers stated, “As a major Cypress fan and major stockholder with most of my net worth invested in the Company, I am driven by my belief that these serious wrongdoings, unaddressed by the Cypress Board, are a threat to stockholder value. The Board has a duty to the Cypress stockholders to resolve the executive chairman’s obvious conflict of interest and gross overcompensation problems. I have made a standing offer to the Cypress Board that if candidates J. Daniel McCranie and Camillo Martino are seated on the Board under appropriate terms and with appropriate committee positions, despite their being a distinct minority of two among current directors, I would trust in their energy and integrity to resolve these problems – without the need for further litigation or a proxy contest and without the requirement that Mr. Bingham and lead independent director Eric Benhamou leave the Cypress Board. Does this offer sound vendetta-driven to you? The Board is fully aware of my offer, which still stands, yet it has resorted to what I believe are false proxy statements and ad hominem attacks on the nominees and me as a smokescreen to cover for its refusal to address the big problem: Cypress should not be forced to complete against its own executive chairman in the M&A market.”

Rodgers’s second lawsuit focuses on the Cypress Board’s refusal to disclose the truth about Bingham’s work for a direct Cypress competitor

Rodgers’s claims in the second lawsuit filed today in the Delaware Court of Chancery include specific allegations regarding Cypress’s Definitive Proxy Statement and other proxy materials which:

  • Fail to describe accurately and completely the timing and scope of Mr. Bingham’s activities at Canyon Bridge;
  • Fail to mention even one of the seven separate and individually applicable ethical guidelines and procedures that Mr. Bingham violated by founding and acting on behalf of Canyon Bridge—a direct competitor of Cypress in the critical semiconductor M&A market;
  • Falsely state that Rodgers’s concerns regarding Bingham’s irreconcilable conflict of interest are unfounded despite the finding to the contrary by the Delaware Court of Chancery that Rodgers has a credible basis to believe that Mr. Bingham’s relationships with Canyon Bridge and Cypress represent a conflict of interest;
  • Fail to disclose the Cypress Board’s actual factual findings, conclusions, and decisions regarding Mr. Bingham’s relationship with Canyon Bridge, Bingham’s non-compliance with Cypress’ Code of Business Conduct and Ethics, and the potential risks to Cypress resulting from Mr. Bingham’s work for a direct competitor of Cypress;
  • Fail to disclose what was discussed, what decisions made, and what actions taken as a result of a call between Cypress “lead independent director” Eric Benhamou and an unidentified senior representative of Canyon Bridge (and their respective lawyers) on January 23, 2017.

Rodgers calls on the Board of Directors of Cypress to make full and accurate disclosures to Cypress stockholders promptly regarding these important issues at the heart of the upcoming election of directors.

Rodgers concluded, “At the upcoming Annual Meeting, stockholders will have the opportunity to elect two extraordinary new Directors, who would upgrade the Cypress Board. Dan McCranie and Camillo Martino have the operational expertise necessary to guide Cypress through the next stage of its growth and to take appropriate steps to protect Cypress from future ethical conflicts. In contrast to the current members of the Cypress Board, McCranie and Martino have experience as semiconductor company CEOs to complement their governance experience and reputations for integrity.”

Chroma ATE Inc., a supplier of precision Test and Measurement Instrumentation, Automated Test Systems, Intelligent Manufacturing Systems, Turnkey Test and Automation Solutions, has recently released the newest semiconductor test solution for the IoT IC market.

The Chroma 3680 is an advanced SoC test system with data rate up to 1Gbps. The Chroma 3680 is capable of conducting parallel tests on multiple chips to meet the digital and analog IC testing requirements, with applications including MCU, digital audio, digital TV, set-top box, DSP, network processor, field programmable gate array (FPGA) and consumer electronics.

Newly developed this year, the Chroma 33010 PXIe Digital IO Card provides automatic test functions based on PXIe architecture to excel in the heavy demands of PXI testing. To satisfy smaller IC channels and increasingly complex test functions especially on IoT and automotive electronics IC, the PXI/PXIe architecture in semiconductor testing offers unparalleled advantage in diversity and flexibility, which includes MCU, MEMS, RF IC and PMIC testing. It can also be ported to Chroma 3380D (256 channels) and Chroma 3380P (512 channels) for mass-production as they have high similarity in both software and hardware.

The Chroma 3260 Tri-Temperature SLT Handler is equipped DTC (Dynamic Temperature Control) function by leading Nitro TEC technology, which can support more excellent temperature performance range from -40°C to 125°C with +/- 1°C accuracy. It is suitable for parallel tests on multiple module boards, and the test sockets embedded can accommodate various types of package (QFP, TQFP, μBGA, PGA and CSP). The Chroma 3260 (Tri-Temp.) can change kit quickly as changing different DUT (Device Under Test) to significantly reduce the downtime and improve efficiency. Applications include the IC components for IoV (Internet of Vehicle) and the cloud-computing industry.

The Chroma 3111 Table Top Single Site Handler is designed for system function testing especially during engineering experimental phase. It has electrical terminal test capability to support various packaged wafers sizes, ranging from 5x5mm to 45x45mm.The Chroma 3111 will be the best choice to effectively minimize time and cost during engineering test due to its tiny size (60cm2 space) feature.

The Chroma semiconductor test equipment integrated with the MP5800 RF ATE tester can cover 6GHz test range and provide 4/8 RF port with 120MHz bandwidth. Its applications include WiFi , BT, GPS, other IoT connectivity ICs and RF components (PA / LNA / Converter, etc.) to satisfy the requirements of a total RF/Digital ATE (CP/FT/SLT) test solution.

Chroma’s semiconductor test solution also provides a variety of software suites for different testing applications.