Rohde & Schwarz America and DA-Integrated Collaborate on IC Tester for Advanced RF & Millimeter Wave Integrated Circuits

COLUMBIA, Md., May 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — Rohde & Schwarz America (RSA), a leading supplier of test & measurement equipment, and DA-Integrated, a company that offers advanced production test systems for development, characterization and volume production, have announced today that they have collaborated to develop an on-wafer RFIC production test system for RF and millimeter wave devices. The system uses Standard ATE Production IC Test Systems at DA-Integrated along with Rohde & Schwarz’s R&S ZVA 67 GHz Vector Network Analyzer (VNA) to create a robust volume production test system capable of handling advanced RF & millimeter wave integrated circuit devices. New RF and millimeter wave applications, such as 5G mobile, automotive radar, active array antennas, WiGig and other wireless broadband systems, require appropriate on-wafer production test capability as a complement to the production robustness, speed and cost structures associated with automated test equipment (ATE) systems.

With IC technology moving to higher frequencies, design margins are shrinking, making the accuracy and precision of test instruments more critical in production testing. With this new system, customers benefit from the high volume scalability and robustness of the ATE system combined with the speed and accuracy of the Rohde & Schwarz vector network analyzer as required to test these new devices. Rohde & Schwarz vector network analyzers are designed to provide highly accurate and traceable results, all while maintaining the industry’s fastest measurement speed and highest port count for parallel testing.

Rohde & Schwarz's R&S ZVA 67 GHz Vector Network Analyzer

“In addition to considering the capabilities of systems on our floor, it is also critical to ensure the systems are well deployed at outsourced assembly and test (OSAT) locations so customers have a path to very high volume production,” said Scott Bulbrook, co-founder and Vice President of Engineering at DA-Integrated. “Our existing RFIC platforms have supported the 2 – 5 GHz range of RFICs for more than ten years, but production worthy systems beyond that frequency range do not appear to be in the roadmaps of the primary ATE vendors. We felt it was time to develop this technology ourselves, and in collaboration with Rohde & Schwarz, we did.”

“We are very excited to be working with DA-Integrated in creating this new offering,” said Dr. Chris Scholz, Product Manager for Vector Network Analyzers at Rohde & Schwarz America. “By combining our advanced VNA technology with existing ATE systems, customers benefit from fast testing speed and scalability required by these new RFIC devices.”

For more information about DA-Integrated’s Production IC Test System, visit https://www.da-integrated.com/

For more information about Rohde & Schwarz’s R&S ZVA 67 GHz Vector Network Analyzer (VNA), visit
https://www.rohde-schwarz.com/us/product/zva-productstartpage_63493-9660.html

Press contacts:
North America: Keith Cobler, Phone: +1 214 663 6394, E-mail: [email protected]

Contacts for readers:
Customer Support North America: Phone: +1 888 837 8772, E-mail: [email protected]

About DA-Integrated (Ottawa, Ontario CANADA)
DA-Integrated is a semiconductor services company specializing in Production Test and in development of full custom ICs for specialized systems. Proven success with more than 150 customers and 500 IC development projects, lets us help customers optimize development cost, time to market, product quality and cost of goods sold. For more information, please visit www.da-integrated.com

Rohde & Schwarz
The Rohde & Schwarz electronics group offers innovative solutions in all fields of wireless communications as well as in IT security. Founded more than 80 years ago, the independent company has an extensive sales and service network with subsidiaries and representatives in more than 70 countries. On June 30, 2016, Rohde & Schwarz had approximately 10,000 employees. The group achieved a net revenue of approximately EUR 1.92 billion in the 2015/2016 fiscal year (July to June). The company is headquartered in Munich, Germany, and also has strong regional hubs in Asia and the USA.

R&S ® is a registered trademark of Rohde & Schwarz GmbH & Co. KG.

All press releases are available on the Internet at http://www.rohde-schwarz.us.

SOURCE Rohde & Schwarz