SAN JOSE, Calif., Nov. 29, 2010 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- PDF Solutions, Inc. (Nasdaq:PDFS), the leading provider of yield improvement technologies and services for the integrated circuit (IC) manufacturing process life cycle, today announced that Austrian high performance analog IC maker austriamicrosystems AG has selected its mæstria® Fault Detection and Classification (FDC) as austriamicrosystems' enterprise-wide FDC solution. austriamicrosystems had previously selected and has been using PDF Solutions' dataPOWER® Yield Management System (YMS) software products. PDF will support austriamicrosystems to integrate these market leading software tools and enable austriamicrosystems engineers to increase IC yields by providing a unified view of product yield and manufacturing data.
"After an extensive evaluation and actual usage, we found mæstria® and dataPOWER® to be the best stand-alone FDC and YMS products on the market today," said Walter Mente, Vice President Operations at austriamicrosystems. "Integrating the two should provide even greater leverage and value to austriamicrosystems."
"We are pleased to work with austriamicrosystems to deploy the industry's only combined FDC and YMS solution," stated Dr. John Kibarian, CEO at PDF Solutions. "The integrated offering is designed to tie tool parameter data with product yield information and provide fab engineers with a unified environment to correlate equipment parameters and final product yield. This offering aims to provide our customers with the most advanced and comprehensive set of tools and services to optimize the prevention, detection, and resolution of yield loss mechanisms."
FDC and YMS tools have traditionally been regarded as different solutions addressing separate yield-loss mechanisms. While FDC tools focus on real-time (on-line) detection of manufacturing equipment parameter excursion, YMS tools have traditionally been used as an off-line tool to identify root causes of yield loss based on correlations of final die (IC) yield. This approach resulted in the creation of data "islands" within the fab. Integrating equipment trace data with product and process data using advanced FDC and YMS software is intended to provide comprehensive and fast analysis capabilities to resolve equipment-based product yield loss. The integrated YMS-FDC solution is designed to improve the prevention of yield excursions by "feeding-backward" YMS data to the FDC software to optimize fab equipment control strategies, as well as shorten the time to identify the root-cause of a yield loss mechanism by "feeding-forward" FDC data to the YMS software.
About PDF Solutions
PDF Solutions, Inc. (Nasdaq:PDFS) is the leading provider of yield improvement technologies and services for the IC manufacturing process life cycle. PDF Solutions offers solutions that are designed to enable clients to lower costs of IC design and manufacture, enhance time to market, and improve profitability by addressing design and manufacturing interactions from product design to initial process ramps to mature manufacturing operations. PDF Solutions' Characterization Vehicle® (CV®) test chips provide the core modeling capabilities, and are used by more leading manufacturers than any other test chips in the industry. PDF Solutions' industry leading yield management system software, dataPOWER®, and fault detection and classification software, mæstria®, enhance yield improvement and production control activities at leading fabs around the world. Headquartered in San Jose, Calif., PDF Solutions operates worldwide with additional offices in China, Europe, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan. For the company's latest news and information, visit .
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CONTACT: PDF Solutions, Inc. Kimon Michaels, Vice President, Products and Services (408) 938-6408 kimon.michaels@pdf.com
