Test & Measurement
Tackling chip complexity with integrated system-level test solutions
By Davette Berry, senior director of business development, Advantest A
s the sophistication of semiconductors continues to grow, so does the need for system-level test (SLT) in production to ensure that
high-performance processors, chiplets, and other advanced devices function as expected in real-world environments. Once seen primarily as a fallback to catch what traditional automated test equipment (ATE) missed, SLT has now become a mission-critical step for validating AI accelerators, central, graphical and application processing units (CPUs, GPUs, and APUs) before market release. It’s increasingly being evaluated for use in production lines for devices like network and automotive processors – where reliability is non-negotiable. However, implementing SLT at production scale introduces new complexities in balancing cost, throughput, and test coverage.
While ATE works by driving known test patterns to stimulate in-chip circuitry and observe expected internal responses, SLT, in contrast, looks at how the chip behaves as part of a larger system, focusing on interactions across cores and peripherals, including aspects like power regulation and sensor behavior. This means that SLT platforms must support a broad mix of application-level use cases and interfaces – especially when testing cutting- edge semiconductors.
This requirement grows even more pressing with the rise of chiplet-based design strategies. Instead of assessing a single chip in isolation, SLT can evaluate the communication between multiple dies in a single package. Unlike ATE methods, which offer limited access to internal interactions between die, SLT helps validate cross-chip data paths and their impact on power, performance, and reliability. Yet many SLT deployments still rely on manual methods of creating the test content, which limits their scalability.
Overcoming coverage gaps Electronic design automation (EDA) companies have helped chip designers automatically generate structural test patterns to achieve close to 99 per cent transistor coverage. With today’s 100-billion-transistor AI processors,
26 April 2026
Advantest’s platforms, now equipped with Real-Time Data Infrastructure (RTDI), deliver fast, secure access to test data, empowering AI tools to enhance yield and resource utilization.
this coverage
still leaves a billion transistors unchecked. Closing this last 1 per cent
gap using only ATE is an expensive, time- consuming effort, often requiring months of development time.
Furthermore, chiplet integration introduces new mechanical and thermal challenges. With fewer external access points, test engineers must route signals through complex, multi-die pathways. These large packages can warp, complicating socket alignment and risking poor (device-under-test) DUT connectivity. Under load, heat spots form across tightly integrated dies – an issue that demands close coordination between thermal control, actuation mechanics, and power sequencing in the SLT system.
SLT implementation also requires cross-disciplinary cooperation. Test content needs to be co-developed and validated by stakeholders across the ecosystem – equipment and socket vendors, silicon designers, OSATs, and application board manufacturers, along with end-users like hyperscale data centre operators or smartphone OEMs. The SLT test station must authentically replicate the device’s actual operating environment.
As power demands rise, testing infrastructure must keep pace. SLT test times can last 30 minutes or more, pushing facilities to deploy dense configurations of
Components in Electronics
testers within space- and energy-efficient layouts. At the same time, the DUTs and their supporting hardware keep growing in size and complexity.
Advances in test methodology The chip industry has responded with new DFT methods that deliver test data over high-speed serial interfaces – like USB or PCIe – rather than parallel pin scan chains. During SLT, once these ports are activated and enumerated, test programs can operate through them to trigger built-in tests or deliver packetized patterns, minimizing pin requirements while maximizing coverage. Once validated, this structural test content can be correlated across various platforms – ATE, SLT, and post-silicon validation – improving debug efficiency and accelerating time to market. Advantest supports this with platforms like LinkScale and our new SiConic system, helping unify the test and validation landscape.
Thermal management remains a universal concern. Testing power-hungry processors in aggressive workloads stresses both the DUT and the test infrastructure. Solutions today span from traditional air cooling to advanced liquid and refrigerant-based systems, all while emphasizing environmental sustainability. SLT handlers must support repeated thermal cycling and actuation without compromising electro-mechanical stability or DUT safety. Machine learning and AI bring fresh opportunities to optimize test operations.
Advantest delivers a cohesive ecosystem of SLT solutions tailored to modern semiconductor demands. Our lineup includes ATE handlers, lab-grade engineering testers, and full-scale SLT systems, all designed with shared physical and thermal interfaces to simplify correlation and integration. Our thermal systems will support up to 5000 W per DUT and enable multizone thermal management, with programmable set points that adapt dynamically during test cycles. These capabilities are essential for maintaining test fidelity in the face of rising power levels and integration density. In the past, some chipmakers had no choice but to build their own SLT test setups from scratch. Advantest now offers turnkey SLT test cells that integrate all critical components – test execution, thermal and power control, mechanical handling, and test content delivery – backed by our global service infrastructure. These systems ensure every test cell remains consistent, controlled, and up to date.
We work directly with customers to simulate how packages will behave thermally and mechanically during test. This includes modelling warpage, compression, and power dynamics – all of which are crucial for validating new packaging formats, including future designs like co-packaged optics. To orchestrate all this complexity, Advantest offers ActivATE360, our integrated software suite for SLT and burn-in systems. ActivATE360 seamlessly communicates with Advantest’s cloud services (ACS) and SmarTest 8 software for ATE, enabling real-time data sharing, unified debug, and cross-insertion test correlation. Used with hardware like LinkScale and SiConic, these tools help accelerate validation and close the loop from silicon design to high-volume production.
https://www.advantest.com/en/
www.cieonline.co.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44
