(iTers News) - Leading semiconductor test equipment supplier Advantest Corporation has introduced its newest digital channel card, the Pin Scale Serial Link (PSSL) card, for at-speed characterization and volume production of today's high-speed semiconductors. PSSL is the fastest fully integrated automated test equipment (ATE) instrument on the market, capable of data rates up to 16 Gbps.

The new PSSL extends the speed and performance capabilities of Advantest's previous Pin Scale cards to enable affordable, at-speed testing of high-end ICs. Built on the V93000 Smart Scale's universal pin architecture, PSSL can perform per-pin testing with high multi-site efficiency. Each pin on a PSSL card can run at its own data rate, offering granularity that is unprecedented in the ATE industry.

This enables full test coverage by matching the exact clock speeds of all ports without sacrificing pin count or timing flexibility. All resources operate independently and concurrently, which makes PSSL ideally suited for high-volume production. With these capabilities, the new card can test advanced ICs designed for infrastructure and network processing applications such as 10G/40G/100G Ethernet, PCI Express (PCIe) interface or proprietary 10G to 16G backplane SerDes technology, used throughout China's LTE communications infrastructure.

In addition to handling industry-leading data-transfer rates up to 16 Gbps, PSSL supports a full suite of physical layer (PHY) testing methodologies such as pseudorandom bit stream (PRBS) stimulus and response, jitter injection and measurement capability, and AC and DC analysis to deliver comprehensive margin test coverage.

"Testing today's fastest IC interfaces with sufficient coverage requires an at-speed test solution that can deliver a low cost of test," said Hans-Juergen Wagner, senior vice president, SoC Business Group at Advantest Corporation. "Our new PSSL card offers this needed speed and performance, extending Advantest's leadership in high-speed ATE instrumentation."

Advantest has received multiple orders from customers and has begun shipping the new PSSL card.