Keithley Partners with Stratosphere Solutions to Enable Advanced Process
Characterization at Sub-65nm
Partnership delivers silicon-proven interoperable solution to drive
parametric yields higher
Cleveland, Ohio - February
11, 2008 - Keithley Instruments, Inc. (NYSE:KEI), a leader
in solutions for emerging measurement needs, announces a partnership
with Stratosphere Solutions, Inc. (Sunnyvale, CA), a provider of innovative
parametric yield improvement solutions for integrated circuit manufacturers.
Keithley's partnership with Stratosphere Solutions will address advanced
process development and monitoring using an Array TEG (test element
group) technology.
Parametric process variation at the sub-65nm
level is posing significant challenges to design and test engineers
as IC manufacturers seek to produce ever-smaller devices. The semiconductor
industry is seeing a rapidly growing need for monitoring extremely sensitive
production processes in order to optimize IC performance without sacrificing
yields.
Keithley and Stratosphere Solutions will work together
to provide mutual customers with a unique characterization infrastructure
that includes high volume, high throughput, and reliable parametric
measurements using Keithley's Series S600 Parametric Testers and StratoPro™
IP to ensure customer success.
"As semiconductor technology
pushes the upper limits of device miniaturization to nano-scale levels,
measurement technology must not only keep pace but even lead manufacturers'
ability to build and test these devices," explained Mark Hoersten, Keithley
vice president, business management. "As a leader in semiconductor test
technology, Keithley looks forward to collaborating with leading players
in the industry to create innovative solutions for the most advanced
customer applications."
"We are excited to be working with Keithley
to deliver innovative, out-of-the-box, interoperable solutions that
connect best-in-class tools, critical for our industry." said Prashant
Maniar, Chief Strategy Officer, Stratosphere Solutions, Inc. "As technology
advances to 45nm and below, more and more customers face the challenge
of ramping parametric yield. Our tightly integrated, silicon-proven
solution is a linchpin in empowering customers to drive parametric yield
higher, reduce the cost of ramping parametric yield, accelerate test
time, and improve ROI."
Keithley's Series S600 Parametric Testers
help fabs and wafer foundries reduce their cost of test by being adaptable
to changing device technologies. Their ability to be repurposed as very
minimal cost DC, RF, and array TEG testers provides capital equipment
reuse and therefore lowers the cost of test. The latest in the Series
S600, the Model S680, combines, in a single test system, parallel testing
capability, high DC sensitivity, femtoamp-level resolution, and RF s-parameter
measurements up to 40GHz. This provides the industry's highest throughput
and a lower cost of ownership for measurements at the 65nm node and
beyond.
Array TEG structures, like Stratosphere's award-winning
StratoPro product suite, are increasingly becoming mission-critical
for characterizing semiconductor processes as geometries shrink below
65nm. Leading edge semiconductor companies desire a de facto standard
product, StratoPro, which delivers thousands of times higher density
for the same silicon area, highest resolution measurements, and improved
overall test integrity.
StratoPro™, a Parametric ActiveMatrix™
silicon IP platform, empowers fab and fab-lite customers to characterize
with high accuracy, within-die statistics of electrical parameters and
their variability. Customers choose the 65nm and 45nm silicon-proven
StratoPro platform, because it provides 10 to 1000x greater test structure
density, performs very high resolution measurements, and, coupled with
the Keithley tester platform, provides significant improvement in test
time. Fab customers use StratoPro™ during early process development,
yield ramp, and production monitoring. Fab-lite customers use the solution
to characterize design-style dependent process variations.
About Stratosphere Solutions, Inc.
Stratosphere
Solutions, Inc. is the leading provider of an innovative parametric
yield improvement solution including a silicon-proven IP platform and
modeling applications empowering customers to reduce impact of variability
on performance and parametric yield. Its customer base includes leading
worldwide semiconductor companies building products utilizing processes
from 130nm to 45nm. For additional information, visit www.stratosol.com.
About Keithley Instruments, Inc.
With more than 60 years of measurement expertise,
Keithley Instruments has become a world leader in advanced electrical
test instruments and systems from DC to RF (radio frequency). Our products
solve emerging measurement needs in production testing, process monitoring,
product development, and research. Our customers are scientists and
engineers in the worldwide electronics industry involved with advanced
materials research, semiconductor device development and fabrication,
and the production of end products such as portable wireless devices.
The value we provide them is a combination of precision measurement
technology and a rich understanding of their applications to improve
the quality of their products and reduce their cost of test.
For More Information. For more information on Keithley's parametric
testers or any of its semiconductor test equipment, visit www.keithley.com/products/semiconductor
or contact the company at:
Telephone: 800-688-9951 440-248-0400
FAX: 440-248-6168
E-mail: publisher@keithley.com
Internet: www.keithley.com
Address: Keithley Instruments, Inc.
28775 Aurora Road
Cleveland, OH 44139-1891
Products and company names listed are
trademarks or trade names of their respective companies.
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