We offer silicon and software bring-up and debug services through our lab partners, such as SilTest

  • Initial Visual & Electrical Inspection:
    • Verifying component polarity and checking for solder bridges using a microscope.
    • Measuring power rails with a multimeter to ensure no short circuits exist before applying full power.
  • Power-On & Clock Verification:
    • Applying power via a lab supply with current limits and checking for abnormal consumption.
  • Verifying crystals and oscillators with an oscilloscope to confirm the system heartbeats are active.
  • Firmware & Bootloader Bring-Up:
    • Connecting via JTAG or SWD interfaces to load initial bootloaders and verify the processor is not stuck in a reset state.
  • Peripheral Interface Testing:
    • Systematically testing basic digital interfaces like GPIO, UART, I2C, and SPI before moving to complex buses like USB, Ethernet, or HDMI.
  • Boundary Scan & Advanced Debugging:
    • Using tools like JTAG boundary scan (e.g., XJTAG) to test physically inaccessible pins under BGA packages without needing to boot the OS.
  • Software & Application Debug Service

Testing of 5 process corners, representing the extremes of fabrication parameter variations:

  • TT (Typical-Typical): Represents typical manufacturing conditions and expected performance.
  • FF (Fast-Fast): Represents the fastest possible switching speeds, often used to test for hold timing violations.
  • SS (Slow-Slow): Represents the slowest possible switching speed and is used to verify setup timing.
  • SF (Slow-Fast): A “skewed” or “cross” corner where NMOS is slow, and PMOS is fast.
  • FS (Fast-Slow): A skewed corner where NMOS is fast, and PMOS is slow.

Silicon fixes

  • Using a Focused Ion Beam (FIB) fix to modify or repair the internal circuitry of a nanoscale silicon chip, to enable the continued bring up and software development without the cost and delay involved with a completely new tapeout.