Profile: Verigy Ltd. (VRGY.O)

Verigy Ltd. designs, develops, manufactures and sells advanced test systems and solutions for the semiconductor industry. The Company offers a single platform for each of the general categories of devices being tested: its V93000 Series platform, designed to test System-on-a-Chip (SOC), System-in-a-Package (SIP) and high-speed memory devices; its V6000 Series platform, which is the successor to the V5000 platform, designed to test both flash memory and dynamic random access memory (DRAM) devices, and its V101 platform, designed to test devices, such as 4, 8 and 16-bit micro-controller units (MCUs). As of October 31, 2009, Verigy Ltd had installed more than 2,000 V93000 Series systems and nearly 2600 V5000 Series systems worldwide. During the fiscal year ended October 31, 2009 (fiscal 2009), the Company acquired the assets and business of Touchdown Technologies, a manufacturer of advanced memory probe cards.

V93000 Series Platform

The Company’s V93000 Series platform tests SOCs, SIPs and high-speed memory devices, which are used in a range of consumer electronics products, including Moving Picture Experts Group Layer-3 Audio (MP3) players, BluRay disc players, digital televisions, television set-top boxes, PCs, gaming consoles and cell phones and other wireless communication devices. Its V93000 Series platform, with its tester-per-pin architecture, is scalable in a number of ways, including with respect to the frequency range of the applied test signals, the number of pins to accommodate integrated circuit (ICs) with different pin counts and the number of devices that can be tested in parallel. With up to 32 channels per digital card and the ability to use from 4 to 64 cards per system, the V93000 Series platform can scale in the number of pins that it tests simultaneously, from 128 to 2,048 pins, enabling it to test large numbers of devices in parallel.

The Company’s V93000 Series platform can test a range of applications with only one test system. Its V93000 Series platform also supports a number of advanced test methodologies, such as BIST, DfT and concurrent test. Its V93000 Series platform’s tester-per-pin architecture, enabled by its application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC)-based and liquid cooled design, is what makes the platform scalable, flexible and able to achieve high performance and accuracy in a small test platform footprint. Its tester-per-pin architecture provides for an ASIC-based test processor, which tests each pin of each device, with all test processing done locally and each test processor operating independently.

V6000 Series Platform

Verigy Ltd’s V6000 Series platform is designed to test flash memory, static random access memory (SRAM), dynamic random access memory (DRAM) and mixed memory devices contained in a range of electronic products. It can also test multi-chip packages containing single or multiple types of memory, addressing the use of multi-chip packages (MCPs). The V6000 Series platform, with its tester-per-site architecture, is test solution designed specifically for the testing of memory devices to enable parallel and efficient testing.

V101

The Company’s V101 platform is designed to test electronic devices, such as 4, 8, and 16-bit MCUs, that are used in a range of communications, data processing, consumer, industrial and military/aerospace products. The V101 test platform, with its tester-on-board” architecture is a test solution designed for testing micro-controller units (MCUs) and other low end consumer devices. The V101 test platform can test a range of MCU and low end consumer devices. The V101 includes a Versatile Digital Instrument architecture consisting of test channels, power supplies, reference voltages and parametric measurement units. The V101 is capable of testing digital as well as embedded ADC analog functions.

DfX Solutions

Verigy’s DfX product family provides solutions for design debug, failure analysis and yield learning for semiconductor devices and processes. These solutions are designed to identify design and/or process issues that arise as devices move from design to fabrication and can impact device performance and yield, particularly for advanced designs utilizing sub 65-nanometer geometries. The Verigy solutions enable diagnosis to start at the time the failure is first detected, allowing for more rapid resolution, and provide specific details about the failures detected.

Verigy provides two primary solutions to address these problems: Silicon Debug and Yield Learning, both of which operate in conjunction with its V93000 tester. The Silicon Debug solution helps customers shorten the time to debug and characterize new devices by diagnosing failures in the device using advanced scan test techniques. This analysis is primarily performed on the V93000 in the product engineering laboratory. The Yield Learning Solution was introduced in fiscal 2009. This solution helps customers accelerate the time to full production yield and to monitor for yield discrepancies using the V93000 at wafer test in the production flow. The solution comprises the V93000 running specific test algorithms to detect electrical failures at wafer test then map them to physical locations on the wafer/die using offline analysis tools to enable diagnosis to be completed through physical failure analysis techniques.

Touchdown Technologies

On June 15, 2009, Verigy, completed the acquisition of Touchdown Technologies, Inc. Touchdown develops, manufactures and sells advanced, MEMS (micro electro-mechanical switch) based probe cards used in wafer-sort testing of memory devices. Probe cards are used in conjunction with memory testers, and establish the final physical and electrical connection between the tester and the wafer being tested. Unlike testers, which may be used to test many different device types during their active service life, probe cards are designed for the specific devices being tested, and must be replaced to test different devices. Touchdown’s products include Td110 ACCU-TORQ; Td160 ACCU-TORQ; Td110 ACCU-TORQ, and Td300 ACCU-TORQ.

The Company competes with Advantest Corporation, LTX-Credence Corporation, Teradyne, Inc. and Yokogawa Electric Corporation.