Credence Systems Corporation

Credence Systems Coporation

Roman A Slizynski

Bryan J Dinteman

Daniel J Bedell

David Dean Reynolds

A general purpose integrated circuit (IC) tester includes a set of channels, one for each input or output pin of an IC device under test (DUT). Each channel is programmed by a host computer to either supply a test signal to a DUT I/O pin or sample a DUT output signal appearing at the I/O pin and produce sample data representing its magnitude or logic state. The tester also includes an amorphous logic circuit (ALC) having a set of input and output terminals and a programmable logic circuit interconnecting the input and output terminals. Some of the ALC input and output terminals receive the sample data produced by each channel and other ALC terminals send control signals directly to each channel. Other ALC terminals transmit data to the host computer. When it programs the channels to perform a test, the host computer also programs the ALC to control various operations of the channels during the test, to perform a real-time analysis of the test data produced by the channels, and to communicate results of the analysis to the host.

Integrated circuit tester having amorphous logic for real-time data

A digitizer can be programmed to digitize an ANALOG signal with a complex frequency pattern determined in response to set of trigger signals. The digitizer includes an addressable packet memory storing a set of data packets and produces one of its stored data packets as output when addressed. The output data packet includes both PERIOD and MODE data fields. The digitizer also incudes an analog-to-digital converter for digitizing the ANALOG signal at the frequency controlled by the PERIOD data output of the packet memory. The MODE data output of the packet memory tells a trigger logic circuit how to choose a next packet memory address and selects one of the trigger signals to tell the trigger logic circuit when to change the packet memory address so as to alter the digitizing frequency.

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Beaverton, OR, United States of America

Roman A Slizynski