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Enhancing PCB Testing with Semiconductor Data Integration

In a significant advancement for electronic manufacturing, yieldWerx and WATS have entered into a partnership focused on integrating PCB testing with semiconductor manufacturing data. This collaboration is aimed at solving a long-standing issue in the industry where board-level and semiconductor test data are often examined separately, hindering the ability to make crucial correlations throughout the product lifecycle.

The complexities of today's electronics manufacturing processes mean that linking various test results—such as those from PCB assembly (PCBA) testing with upstream data from wafer fabrication and testing—can prove challenging. This is particularly true in advanced environments like photonics and high-density integration. To address this, yieldWerx and WATS are combining their efforts, merging their platforms for enhanced visibility and analytics.

A Closer Look at the Partnership

WATS' Role in Test Data Management

WATS serves as a cutting-edge test data management platform that has been specifically designed for manufacturers of electronic components. It specializes in capturing, standardizing, and analyzing high-volume test data derived from various stages of PCBA production, including in-circuit tests (ICT), functional tests, and final assessments. This platform enables engineers to gain real-time insights into critical metrics such as board-level yield and performance anomalies, all while ensuring a holistic view across the production line.

yieldWerx's Contribution

On the other hand, yieldWerx operates on the semiconductor level, synthesizing data across multiple stages—wafer fabrication, sorting, and device testing. Its enterprise analytics capabilities facilitate advanced yield analysis, traceability, and effective root cause investigations that span the entire semiconductor lifecycle, from initial design to final product testing.

By merging these powerful platforms, manufacturers can better correlate their PCBA test results with wafer and silicon quality data. This not only enhances the clarity around each test stage but also empowers engineers to carry out more effective analyses to identify yield and reliability issues that arise during the manufacturing process.

Benefits of the Collaboration

The benefits to customers and the electronics manufacturing industry are manifold:

• - Real-time Visibility: The integration allows for quicker identification of yield and quality challenges in PCB testing.
• - Enhanced Correlation: Better linkage between board-level results and upstream chip data aids in more comprehensive analyses.
• - Time Savings: Reduced reconciliation efforts across disparate systems streamline operations.
• - Proactive Detection: The system enables earlier detection of patterns affecting yield and reliability across different test phases.
• - Efficient Root Cause Analysis: With data connected from silicon through to assembly and testing, root cause investigations become faster and more informed.
• - Stronger Supply Chain Alignment: The partnership strengthens the fusion between electronics manufacturing and the semiconductor supply chain, fostering greater collaboration.

This combined solution is designed to support open architectures, APIs, and flexible deployment models, ensuring manufacturers can easily integrate these systems without the need for extensive changes to existing setups. Results from early customer engagements indicate overwhelming support for this unified approach, highlighting a pressing industry need for such innovations.

Voices from Leadership

Tom Lomsdalen, CEO of WATS, expressed enthusiasm about the partnership, stating, "We are excited to partner with yieldWerx. Our customers manufacture complex electronics where board-level test data alone only tells part of the story. By connecting PCBA production test data with yieldWerx's upstream semiconductor intelligence, we can give them a more complete picture of their product quality and yield."

Meanwhile, Aftkhar Aslam, CEO of yieldWerx, emphasized the importance of this collaboration by saying, "Our customers have been asking for a unified view that links semiconductor yield data with downstream electronics test results, and this partnership delivers exactly that."

As the electronics manufacturing sector continues to evolve, the partnership between yieldWerx and WATS stands out as a balanced approach towards innovations that aim to optimize production processes and enhance product quality through better data integration.

For more information about their offerings, please visit yieldWerx and WATS.