Test and reference boards

AT&S guarantees quality

Quality control is a major concern in the semiconductor industry. The ultra-fine structures on modern microchips are expensive to develop and produce, and they’re not particularly forgiving of mistakes. That’s why processors and other chips are now routinely checked after production using IC testers. The chips are checked using test boards – complex adapters that make the fine structures of the microchips visible to the IC testers. Some printed circuit boards have many layers, as do the test boards to allow all of the connections in a complex microchip to be checked by the test machine. Special test boards can have up to 84 layers.

AT&S also offers its customers from the semiconductor industry the opportunity to produce their own reference boards. These display systems might be produced when a new generation of chips is developed, for instance. AT&S then produces reference boards that show how the new chip can be integrated onto a printed circuit board. The chip manufacturer can pass these reference systems on to the system and mainboard manufacturers, so that they can offer products for the new chip early on. These reference boards are highly complex, have 12 to 36 layers, and are designed in HDI technology with a very high circuit density.

Due to the need to test its own products, AT&S has many years of experience with machines that test electronic systems. This expertise proves very useful when the company produces test boards and we’re happy to share it with customers from the semiconductor industry. As one of the market leaders in high-end printed circuit boards, AT&S is also in a top provider of reference boards. Our leading position in the technology market means that we can draw on the latest production processes and provide our customers with tailor-made reference systems.