Sr. Product Business Manager FormFactor, OR, United States
5G mmWave systems are here. Advanced Antenna-in-Package modules and RFFE chipsets are integral to the latest generation of high-end smartphones and tablets, and this capability is becoming more ubiquitous in 2022. These chips, containing a massive amount of mmW content, are ramping in mass production, and the companies producing them need a way to reduce cost of RF test. Our collective challenge spans multiple organizations requiring concerted coordination between sub-systems and immaculate preservation of impedance. Additionally, direct measurement test time is appreciable for advanced-RF devices, which drives the need for more parallel measurement insertions. One converging approach, is the use of RF switching on PCB to expand available tester channels and support multi-site probe heads through sequential-parallel testing. To realize actual cost reduction, tester and probe card companies need to evolve quickly to support increased parallelism of mmWave testing. This session drills down into the RF test cell to examine enhancements enabling increased parallelism using new probe head architectures. The development efforts began by enlarging the active probing area using an advanced membrane process. This new capability created a canvas for RF engineers to develop a host of transmission line structures aimed at high density RF routing from the die to the PCB. Innovation continued - with several loopback options, and a host of new structures to support densification. Another problem uniquely solved with the new membrane, is the ability to support 50 Ohm and non-50 Ohm transmission lines simultaneously to match the impedance needs of the tester and overall performance expectations. We'll share examples and typical S-parameter performance for several line types during this session. In closing, this collection of new probe head elements is enabling test engineers to configure their high-volume RF test solutions in novel ways, and we are eager to equip the industry with new test possibilities.
