Developing a modern platform for test engineering — Introducing the origen semiconductor developer's kit

Many of the tools used today in semiconductor test engineering are single-point solutions that are concerned with the mechanics of translating test IP between domains and formats. There is no cohesive standardized framework to bind them all together; and workflow and application architecture choices are largely left up to the individual engineer. Learning from the state-of-the-art in other software engineering domains, we have developed a modern framework for semiconductor engineering that favors a convention-based approach to application architectures. By following conventions, powerful abstractions can be created to enable truly modular test development within a unified environment for the creation of test patterns, test programs, and all other test collateral. The paper reviews the background and some of the main capabilities of the framework and discusses how it is being used in production today to replace many conventional pattern flows. This is also a formal announcement that Freescale Semiconductor is open-sourcing the Origen Semiconductor Developer's Kit (SDK) to enable future development to be done in collaboration with the global semiconductor engineering community.