ISQED 2010 Luncheon

Luncheon Speech: Test of the Future - Some Thoughts for the Next Decade

Antun Domic
Senior Vice President and General Manager
Synopsys

Over the last 40 years, test has moved from being a fab tool to being a design tool, and has become an integral part of the design flow. This move has allowed better (QOR), cheaper (COR), and faster (TTR) test.

As the vanguards of the semiconductor industry approach the 32-nanometer node and start planning the jump to the 22-nanometer node, a number of fundamental challenges are emerging, which force a thorough rethinking of the role of test. Like drugs, which often have counter-indications and side effects, even nanometer design and manufacturing are not immune to drawbacks. This requires that test assume an equal station to nanometer design and manufacturing, is accounted for by them, and inter-operates thoroughly with them. Both implementation and yield management tools may feed test with the design and manufacturing-related information it needs to keep problems manageable, while guaranteeing the desired quality and cost of results. At the same time, test can feed implementation and manufacturing with a great deal of information, which can help identify, locate, fix and/or prevent yield issues. In this keynote, Dr. Domic will describe how design, manufacturing, and test can join forces, and “collaborate” to battle the nanometer challenges.

About Antun Domic

Dr. Antun Domic joined Synopsys in April of 1997. In his current position, Dr. Domic manages the Implementation Group, responsible for Synopsys’ flagship synthesis and physical implementation solutions, physical verification, test automation, signal integrity, power and timing analysis, and formal verification products. Before joining Synopsys, Dr. Domic spent several years at Cadence Design Systems, where he was engineering vice president for the synthesis, place and route, and timing analysis areas. Previously, he worked in the microprocessor group of Digital Equipment Corporation in Hudson, Massachusetts, where he managed the development of CAD tools for synthesis and automatic layout used to design several generations of Alpha and VAX microprocessors. Prior to joining Digital, he worked at MIT Lincoln Laboratories and Honeywell Information Systems. Through the years, Dr. Domic has been involved in the organization of several technical conferences, including the Design Automation Conference (DAC), Design Automation & Test Europe (DATE), the International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD), and the International Conference on Computer Design (ICCD). He participates frequently in industry panels regarding design and manufacturing technologies. Dr. Domic holds a B.S. in mathematics and electrical engineering from the University of Chile in Santiago, Chile, and a Ph.D. in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts.