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Technology Stocks : Intel Corporation (INTC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Time Traveler who wrote (40522)	11/17/1997 10:43:00 AM
From: Elmer	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 186894

<Can you detect/test whether a die is good or bad (meeting the spec, etc) on the wafer level? Or die level? Or packaged?> With few exceptions, die are not tested to their full specification on the wafer due to several reasons. 1. The inability to reliably test at temperature extremes. 2. A probe tip is not as good an electrical contact as a bond wire or bump. 3. Wafer sort frequently uses less expensive and less capable test equipment in view of point 1 & 2. For a company with very high process comtrol, this strategy works well. Most bad die are screened in this manner. For a company with poor process control, such as AMD, this means a higher number of die will get expensive packages wrapped around them, only to fail at final test. Another reason why Intel's costs are lower than AMD's. Hope this helps. EP