An automatic test environment for microelectronics education and research

An automatic test environment (ATE) based on a PSoC has been developed to perform electrical characterization of integrated circuits (ICs). The ICs are designed for academic and research purposes as part of the Electronic Design graduate program at CINVESTAV-Guadalajara Unit; these ICs are manufactured in standard N-well, 54, 1.5 mu m/0.5 mu m CMOS technologies. The ATE offers programmable capabilities to develop master-slave architectures, memory for data storage, functions generator to stimulate circuits and systems, current/voltage sources for several purposes, current-voltage measurements, and ports to download experimental data to a PC. To date, several ICs have been tested with the help of the ATE. In this paper, however, examples based on MOS Transistors only are presented in order to describe the ATE performance and also to show how experimental data of the devices under characterization were validated through SPICE simulations, experimental data given by manufacturers, and using commercial equipment as well.