Suzhou Jingce is based on semiconductor test interface services, with all-in-house technical capabilities, ONE STOP SHOP one-stop shopping advantages

As chip performance continues to improve and chip complexity increases, in order to ensure the quality of chips leaving the factory, chip testing is receiving more and more attention from major manufacturers.

Chip testing is divided into wafer testing (CP, also known as Chip Probing) and chip finished product testing (FT, also known as Final Test or Function Test). Before the wafer is cut into multiple individual chips, a probe card is used to perform wafer testing to confirm the yield. After the chip is packaged, a test interface board (Load Board) is used to perform finished product testing to ensure its normal use.

The probe card and test interface board market is dominated by foreign manufacturers

As we all know, the gap between the domestic semiconductor industry and the international market is comprehensive, especially in the high-end field, and high-end chips also attach the most importance to the testing link. Therefore, like the supply of high-end chips, the chip testing and its important accessories such as probe cards, test interface boards and other testing consumables markets are occupied by manufacturers in Europe, the United States, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and other regions.

For a long time, due to the high technical difficulty in the field of probe cards and test interface panels, which requires long-term capital investment and a large number of professional talents with knowledge in the field of semiconductor testing as support, domestic companies rarely get involved in the above fields.

Figure: Suzhou Jingce provides MEMS vertical probe heads for wafer testing

Image: ST (probe test substrate)

Figure: Probe Card PCB (Test interface board combining Probe and ATE)

The structure includes: PH (probe head) + ST (probe test carrier) + Probe card PCB (test interface board combining Probe and ATE)

It is worth noting that in recent years, with the capital operation and technology upgrade, Changdian Technology, Huatian Technology, and Tongfu Microelectronics have entered the top ten global packaging and testing companies, and local testing manufacturers such as Liyang Chip and Weice Technology have gradually grown up, and import substitution has basically been achieved in testing technology. At the same time, domestic top IC design companies represented by HiSilicon, ZTE, Goodix, and Spreadtrum are accelerating the transfer of orders to domestic suppliers, and the chip testing field has also shown an unprecedented prosperity.

The repeated escalation of Sino-US trade frictions has also sounded the alarm for us. Not only does the IC testing process need to be replaced by domestic products, but the testing consumables such as probe cards and test interface panels, which are important accessories, also need to accelerate the localization process.

As the demand for domestic substitution in the domestic semiconductor industry chain becomes apparent, more and more world-leading test consumables manufacturers have set up shop in mainland China, and local Chinese manufacturers providing test interface services are also showing a rapid development momentum. Suzhou Jingce is one of the best.

Suzhou Jingce is a world-leading test interface application development company, mainly focusing on the test development needs of IC design companies, packaging and testing plants, wafer fabs and other customers. In the two most critical testing links of CP and FT in the semiconductor industry chain, it provides high-quality, cost-effective MEMS vertical probe card solutions (MEMS VPC) and test interface panels.

Suzhou Jingce stated that although the company was established in 2019, it has been deeply involved in the semiconductor testing field for many years. It has MEMS vertical probe cards and PCBA assembly plants, which can combine MEMS probe technology, test carriers, test interface board technology and years of high-speed PCB research results, and cooperate with partners in the semiconductor testing field to provide MEMS vertical probe card solutions (MEMS VPC) and test interface boards for application scenarios such as high speed, high current, high pin count, and three-temperature testing. It can meet the testing needs of chips such as HPC, AI, RF, mobile phones, Netcom terminals, optical communications, and automotive chips. The company's main customers include a number of well-known domestic IC design companies, and it has many years of cooperation experience with domestic wafer fabs and packaging and testing plants.

Taking root in the mainland, seizing the opportunity of domestic substitution development

As mentioned above, mainland China is still in its infancy in the field of semiconductor testing. Taking testing equipment as an example, it is basically monopolized by foreign manufacturers, and probe cards and test interface panels are mainly used in related test hardware built by test equipment developers. In addition, hardware development specifications and interface model sizes are dominated by test equipment developers, resulting in the introduction of early domestic interface test development technology from abroad.

"After years of development, there are now related testing equipment developers in China who have imitated foreign testing machines and imported related interface hardware, mainly probe card interfaces and test carrier interfaces. Later, BIB and SLT interfaces and experimental interfaces such as PCIE-X were added." Suzhou Jingce said that although China has worked hard to promote domestic substitution as much as possible, there is still a gap with foreign manufacturers in test accuracy, test resource development and test compatibility.

It is worth mentioning that domestic substitution has also promoted a significant increase in the scale of the domestic semiconductor testing market and brought huge business opportunities. Based on the advantages of increased application, reduced costs and increased profits of independent research and development, local testing equipment will gradually shift from low- and medium-end models to high-end models, and the required test interface hardware development will increase a lot. This has brought new development opportunities for test interface manufacturers represented by Suzhou Jingce.

As early as 12 years ago, Suzhou Jingce had already taken root in the Chinese mainland market. Based on its accumulated capabilities and experience in serving internationally renowned manufacturers, it can achieve faster guidance and resource integration when serving domestic customers, and has the advantage of assisting domestic semiconductor-related companies in testing application development. This is also the reason why Suzhou Jingce can grow together with the world's top semiconductor manufacturers.

It is worth mentioning that opportunities and challenges coexist. For manufacturers who are new to the test interface industry, it is not easy to get a piece of the pie. There are barriers in terms of talent, technology, customers, development and application experience, etc.

Since test interface technology is very complex and is an interdisciplinary technology involving electrical, optics, mechanical mechanics and chemical special processes, it requires high R&D expenses and long-term cooperation with test equipment developers, and continuous experimentation and application on its own production lines to accumulate specific experience.

In addition, unlike mass-produced products for general consumer or inherent terminal applications, chips have diverse characteristics, which also brings challenges to testing.

Suzhou Jingce said that for different chip products and applications, the testing requirements are different, and different solutions need to be launched. This involves customized design, simulation iterative engineering, optics, electricity, mechanics and other precision measurement technologies, material properties research, and continuous optimization of process development conditions. Only manufacturers with the aforementioned technical capabilities will have the opportunity to seize a certain market share. However, product cost control, delivery delays, quality and technical bottlenecks such as being restricted by outsourced semi-finished product processing, etc. will hinder business expansion and affect market share.

Suzhou Jingce pointed out that from the perspective of the global semiconductor testing field, there are relatively few companies that have both their own production lines for probe cards and test interface panels and all-in-house technical integration capabilities. Most companies mainly develop vertically in local areas. Suzhou Jingce not only independently develops, designs and manufactures MEMS vertical probe cards and test interface panels, but also actively invests in the research and development of related materials, accessories and testing technologies, and can provide a one-stop semiconductor test interface comprehensive solution. Breaking through the traditional framework to develop advanced semiconductor test interface technology, and bringing together talents from various fields such as M (mechanism), E (electricity), C (chemistry), O (optics), etc., to build an AI intelligent production and manufacturing environment, strengthen and improve the competitiveness of Q (quality), C (cost), T (technology), D (delivery time), and S (service), and successfully build a unique business model to help customers of all categories in the semiconductor industry quickly innovate and create a win-win situation in the ever-changing technology industry.

Based on four major areas, providing one-stop solutions

Image: Suzhou Jingce Suzhou Office Building

According to reports, Suzhou Jingce has long focused on four major areas: mobile phone chips, logic, simulation, and high computing power. The mobile phone field includes application processor SOC, RF front end, power module, interface processing applications (HDMI, PCIE, USB, MIPI), etc.; the logic field includes dedicated storage, niche commercial storage, MCU, ISP, DSP, etc.; the simulation field includes AD/DA, optical communication, Driver, pan-RF terminal, etc., and high computing power includes HPC, AI, GPU, DPU, NPU, FPGA, etc.