Test the Techies

In Episode 3,  Advantest technical experts Don Blair, Hagen Goller and Jeff Brenner compete in a fun and lively “Test the Techies” VOICE Conference-themed quiz show.

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Transcript

 KEITH SCHAUB: Welcome to another episode of Advantest Talks Semi, where we bring you the latest innovations happening at Advantest and in the semiconductor industry around the globe. I'm your host, Keith Schaub. In this episode we have a special treat for you, as you may know Advantest’s Annual VOICE conference is coming up soon. So today we're hosting an Advantest VOICE themed quiz show we like to call “Test the Techies”. Joining us, our contestants are the VOICE experts who are helping to shape this year's program. Let's welcome the players Don Blair; Business Development Manager, Hagen Goller; Head of Software Product Definition and Management of the V93000 and Jeff Brenner; Advantest Principal Consultant. Welcome guys. 

DON BLAIR: Morning Keith.  

JEFF BRENNER: Thanks Keith.  

KEITH SCHAUB: Thank you all for joining us. So before we start the game we have our very own Junko Nakaya is here to give us some important information for VOICE 2021, Junko. 

JUNKO NAKAYA: All right, thank you Keith. All right, so everyone mark your calendars. Virtual VOICE 2021 will be held June 21st through 23rd, offering 70 technical papers across eight tracks, Technology Kiosk showcase that highlights the latest Advantest innovations. Two fascinating keynotes related to robotics and AI and our partners expo which introduces companies like Alliance ATE, IC Labs, AC Group and a dozen more. You can also join our workshop day on June 24th for hands on sessions on focusing on 5G millimeter wave, high performance cloud computing and ACS edge. So, VOICE has a lot to offer so don't forget to register by June 16th at voice.advantest.com. 

KEITH SCHAUB: Thanks Junko, wow lots to do at VOICE this year. You know speaking of keynotes, both Dr. Darling and Mr. Lajvardi have presented on the TED stage and to give our listeners an idea of what to expect, Dr Darling’s talk will explore how technology, design and related policy decisions are influenced by emotional connections between humans and life-like machines. The second talk by Mr. Lajvardi equally interesting, is an inspirational story of how one of his high school robotics teams defeated MIT to win first place in an underwater robotics competition. So again, thanks Junko and let's get to our game “Test the Techies”. We will have three rounds. Each round will have several questions, I'll ask the questions, some questions are round robin others are buzz in. If you think you know the answer be the first to buzz in. If correct, you get 1 point, 0 points for wrong answers. At the end of round three the highest score will be crowned “Test the Techies” Winner 2021. Don, Hagen, Jeff, you guys ready? 

DON BLAIR, HAGEN GOLLER: Ready Keith.  

JEFF BRENNER: Ready. 

KEITH SCHAUB: Okay. Round one, this is themed “VOICE 101”. Question one, what is the theme for VOICE 2021? 

HAGEN GOLLER: Hagen, Converging Technologies, Creating Possibilities. 

KEITH SCHAUB: Correct. This year's theme is converging technologies and creating possibilities, the possibilities that can be created across the entire test life cycle, going all the way from post silicon validation to system level testing. So, thanks Hagen. Question two, this is round robin. Each person will get a chance to answer. Don, you'll go first, Hagen, you're next and Jeff you'll go last. So, Don name two of the VOICE technical tracks. 

DON BLAIR: Hardware and software design integration and 5G millimeter wave. 

KEITH SCHAUB: Correct. Hagen? 

HAGEN GOLLER: Parametric test and factory automation.  

KEITH SCHAUB: Correct. And Jeff? 

JEFF BRENNER: Well, Don took the one I'm most familiar with, which is the 5G. So, let's see hot topics and test methodologies. 

KEITH SCHAUB: Correct. Great, and that ends round one. So, Hagen, you're in the lead with two points and Don and Jeff each with one point. So, Don you've been with VOICE since the beginning. How about you tell us a little bit about what to expect at this year's VOICE. 

DON BLAIR: Sure Keith. You know the main value is really for the attendees to be able to learn the concepts and sometimes they can even get software code and be able to take that back to their job and immediately benefit from it. And this is a real plus for them also in justifying to their management you know why they attend VOICE. 

KEITH SCHAUB: Okay thanks Don, moving on to round two this round is called “Memory”. All questions are buzz-in, we will have eight questions representing the eight technical tracks at VOICE. I'll give you the title of an upcoming VOICE 2021 paper, you buzz in and tell me the track. One point for a correct answer. Here we go. Question one, cloud deployment of a machine learning based automated optical inspection solution. 

DON BLAIR: Don, factory automation. 

KEITH SCHAUB: Correct. Question two, high speed IO loop back, the challenges and obstacles of testing 112 gigabits per second. 

HAGEN GOLLER: Hagen, test methodologies, I guess.  

KEITH SCHAUB: Correct. Question three, 5G millimeter wave wafer sort production testing using the V93000 WSMM. 

JEFF BRENNER: Jeff.  

HAGEN GOLLER: Hagen, I have to be faster than Jeff. 

KEITH SCHAUB: I heard Jeff, I heard Jeff first. 

JEFF BRENNER: You had a clue in the title there so I'm going to guess 5G millimeter wave. 

KEITH SCHAUB: Correct. 

HAGEN GOLLER: Jeff is sitting closer to you Keith that's why he came sooner to your ear than I. 

JEFF BRENNER: I've got faster electrons. 

KEITH SCHAUB: All right, question four, high speed image processing by GPU. 

DON BLAIR: Don, T2000/T6391. 

KEITH SCHAUB: Correct. Alright, question five, migrating to new EXA scale power supply modules XPS 256. 

DON BLAIR: Don, age of convergence. 

KEITH SCHAUB: Good Don, Don’s in the lead. Question six, intelligent dynamic parametric testing with the V93000 SMU8 + PDF Excensio test operations. 

JEFF BRENNER: Jeff, parametric test. 

KEITH SCHAUB: Almost a tie but I have to give that to Jeff. Using protocol aware’s read-modify-write hardware solution and the register access library to make protocol aware tests easier to set up with a faster time to market. 

DON BLAIR: Don, hardware and software design integration. 

KEITH SCHAUB: Correct. And the last question, production data gold mining using machine learning to reduce test cost and time by predicting test results. 

JEFF BRENNER: Hot topics. 

KEITH SCHAUB: Ah Jeff you got it, hot topics. That sound signals the end of round two. Don you're in the lead with five points, Jeff you have four, Hagen in three. Hagen, I understand that the VOICE technology kiosk showcase will include both presentations and virtual booths this year. Can you tell us more about the kiosks? 

HAGEN GOLLER: Sure Keith. So while the papers that Don was talking about earlier are basically there you know between our users to share best practices and learn from each other's, kiosks on the other hand are owned by Advantest employees, Advantest people and we basically use that to present news around Advantest product. And the really nice thing is that kiosks allow our attendees to learn really about all the different solutions that Advantest has to offer for semiconductor test. Not just the SOC platforms that a lot of people are familiar with but also all the other things like handlers or System Level Test, cloud-based services and many, many more. We have about 20 kiosks and for each kiosk there will be a kind of offline booth that can be visited any time to get some first basic information and then we'll have live Webex sessions distributed over the three days where the experts are then presenting in more detail and of course are also available for questions. 

KEITH SCHAUB: Great thank you Hagen, sounds like the kiosks are definitely a great way to learn about key interest areas. Okay, for our final round point values are doubled and the round three theme is “Age of Convergence”. There will be five questions, all about the latest technology innovations debuting at this year's Advantest VOICE. Question one, what is the highest number of transistors reported in a single monolithic device? 

JEFF BRENNER: Jeff, Keith that would be a Cerebras, they have a wafer scale device which is over two trillion transistors and it really shows where the market is going and where the device test needs are going. With higher level integration and serious issues to address with very large scan requirements as well as very large power requirements. 

KEITH SCHAUB: Just to add on to what you're saying, even if you have a parts per billion quality level, that's still 1000 defects that you would have on Cerebras. 

JEFF BRENNER: Yeah, well that goes to the point in order to catch all those defects. The amount of scan that you'll need to push through the device with that many gates is tremendous and so you need to cover it in a couple of ways. One is by addressing your scan speed and the other is just a tremendous amount of scan memory as well. And so that's a pretty significant challenge to the ATE right now. Something that we're covering in our workshops. 

KEITH SCHAUB: Okay, question two. Recently Advantest introduced the new EXA Scale generation on the V93000, which plays an important role at VOICE. How many channels of the previous generation PS1600 got installed worldwide? 

DON BLAIR: Don, over seven million. 

KEITH SCHAUB: Hagen, do you have a more specific number? 

HAGEN GOLLER: I think we're almost around 7.5 million in the meantime. 

KEITH SCHAUB: Both are correct but Hagen you're more correct, so I have to give you two points for that. Question three, what is the maximum scan speed of the EXA Scale’s PS5000 when using all 256 channels? 

DON BLAIR: Don, 5000 megabits per second. 

KEITH SCHAUB: Don you were definitely first on that one so I'm gonna give you the two points. Question four, what is the scan memory behind every pin? 

DON BLAIR: Don, 448 mega vector or 3.5 trillion vectors. 

KEITH SCHAUB: 3.5 giga vectors of scan per pin. And the final question, how many channels of the XPS256 have one ant capabilities? 

HAGEN GOLLER: Hagen, all 256. 

KEITH SCHAUB: Hagen 256. Okay, well that ends the contest but before announcing the winner, Jeff, we're all excited that we are bringing back VOICE workshop day. So, tell us what we can expect with the workshops. 

JEFF BRENNER: Keith thanks yeah, I'm excited about bringing it back as well. So, the workshops are an opportunity to really take a deeper dive than we do in the paper, in the solutions, the challenges and the solutions that are brought up in the papers and VOICE. So we have a workshop day which is live sessions - 2 half day sessions through the day, the attendees can choose two sessions which they can attend and in each of these sessions that are led by our lead technical experts in the domain that those session covers will be covering again the challenges, the solutions, as well as some I would say almost hands on expertise as well. We'll have the virtual machines available for several of the workshop sessions in our Advantest Dojo where the attendees will be actually able to get the hands-on work with the solutions. So again, attendees can register for two of the five sessions, if they're not able to make it to workshop day, they can also register to attend the workshops virtually through the Advantest Dojo in the post workshop registration. 

KEITH SCHAUB: Great, perfect. Thanks Jeff. The hands-on experience that you get at the workshops, I find that's invaluable. So definitely I encourage the listeners to attend that. Okay, now to announce the big winner. So with seven no with six points, Jeff you get 3rd place and second place Hagen with seven and our big winner, Don with nine points. Congratulations Don. 

DON BLAIR: Thanks Keith, great games. 

KEITH SCHAUB: Yeah, great job everyone. And thanks for being good sports and letting Don win. As you can tell, VOICE is an amazing event and there's still time for you to register and here to tell you how to do that is our very own Junko. Junko – 

JUNKO NAKAYA: All right, thank you. Everyone please register for Virtual VOICE by June 16th at voice.advantest.com again, it's voice.advantest.com and the registration closes on June 16th. So, we hope to see you there, back to you Keith.  

KEITH SCHAUB: Great, thanks Junko. Well, we hope you enjoyed our first quiz show and learned a few things along the way. I know I did, let us know if you liked it and we might do more. Thanks and see you at VOICE and see you next time.