Posted: November 10, 2009

(Nanowerk News) DCG Systems, Inc. today announced major additions to its comprehensive range of integrated diagnostic tools designed to meet the complex challenges facing manufacturers of today's advanced 32 nm device technologies. DCG Systems products will be showcased November 17-18 at the 35th annual International Symposium for Testing and Failure Analysis (ISTFA 2009, Booth#204) to be held at the McEnery Convention Center, San Jose, California.

"DCG has been investing in the future during 2009 by developing and providing technologies which effectively address the challenge of 32 nm and beyond," said Dr. Israel Niv, President and CEO of DCG Systems. "DCG's business grew significantly during this challenging year, and the introduction of the New Meridian WaferScan and ELITE Systems, as well as the Laser Voltage Imaging option on our existing systems, represents our continuing commitment to provide technologies which our customers require in order to be successful."

Meridian™ WaferScan is DCG Systems' newest wafer yield enhancement instrument to incorporate the successful Meridian-IV platform with a semi-automatic full 300mm wafer prober. The WaferScan allows Meridian-IV's emission analysis capability to be applied to any die on the wafer, providing an effective means to analyze systematic or "soft" parametric defects whose characteristics may vary across the wafer. Meridian WaferScan docks with the production tester and probe card.

DCG Systems' new ELITE™ lock-in IR thermography system provides an exciting new real-time capability for solving issues such as line shorts, ESD defects, oxide damage and device latch-ups. Of particular significance is the ability of ELITE to locate thermal defects in three dimensions, providing the ability to image through the device package and pinpoint defects within stacked-die.

Laser Voltage Imaging™ (LVI) capability is now an optional addition to DCG's Meridian-IV and Ruby™ products. This capability shows the physical locations of transistors that are active at a specific frequency, and may be used to determine the precise locations to obtain the best signal strength for waveform measurements. The addition of LVI also provides a Continuous Wave Laser Voltage Probing™ (CW-LVP)™ signal acquisition capability. The CW-LVP's lower-bandwidth complements the Ruby's high-bandwidth (in excess of 20 GHz) capability.

About DCG Systems

DCG Systems, Inc., a privately held company headquartered in Fremont, California, is the leading provider of semiconductors debug and characterization solutions for the global semiconductor industry. With a commitment to applying innovative technology to improve time to yield and time to market, DCG Systems delivers competitive cost and performance advantages to integrated device manufacturers (IDMs), wafer foundries and fabless chip companies worldwide. DCG Systems is comprised of the former Schlumberger/NPTest Probe Systems division, Optonics Inc. and Hypervision Inc., with an installed base of over 700 systems worldwide.