Verigy sees DDR3 testing demand surfacing
Original date: 2007/7/6
News website: www.digitimes.com
Verigy, the test system supplier spun-off from Agilent Technologies, reiterated that demand exists for DDR3 and anticipates that testing demand for DDR3 will be warming up throughout the industry from 2009, according to RM Chen, president of Verigy's Taiwan branch office.
Although it took about 4-5 years to transit from DDR to DDR2, growing mature technology as well as a shortened learning cycle should speed up the transition to DDR3, Chen believes. DDR3 will be in limited production before 2009 but 2009 should be a year to see massive ramp up, he added.
Currently, Advantest's T5593 tester is generally used in DDR2 testing. DDR3 chips that come in a frequency of 1066MHz can also be tested with the tester. For DDR3 that comes in frequencies of 1066MHz-and-above, parameters have to be changed to perform testing. Yet, as current supply for high-frequency DDR3 is minimal, such an issue is not a concern for the industry, commented analysts. For Verigy, it now already has testers that can test memory with frequencies of 3.6GHz to 10GHz, Chen said in a previous interview with Digitimes.
According to DRAMeXchange, Taiwan-based testing and packaging houses are conservative about their deployment in DDR3 testing given that chipmakers have not made a concrete decision about the type of packaging. Chipmakers are now having their DDR3 packed as window ball-grid array (WBGA), µBGA, chip-scale package (CSP) and flip-chip (FC) package. |
