Why Individual Temperature Control Burn-In

Burn-in with Individual temperature control (ITC) is the most important development in burn-in technology. With ITC, the temperature of each device is independently monitored and regulated throughout the burn-in cycle (i.e., not allowing devices to become so hot that they are damaged or other devices not heating up enough to be adequately burned-in). Contrary to traditional burn-in where multiple devices are placed in a large oven at a uniform ambient temperature, these sophisticated ITC burn-in systems monitor and control the temperatures of hundreds of individually. In order to do this, our systems use either the internal thermal diode temperature or external case temperatures. All the devices are stimulated to exercise all areas of the device for better stress conditions.

ITC replaces the more traditional Dynamic burn-in and Dynamic burn-in with test because it prevents thermal runaway of today’s more advanced devices. Advanced VLSI processors, SoCs, and AI chips generate significant internal heat during a burn-in cycle. The use of ITC burn-in maintains a more stable temperature and thereby prevents high-power devices from overheating during the burn-in process. Healthy devices do not get overly stressed and damaged, and the devices that experience failure are more accurately identified.

Individual temperature control (ITC) burn-in of semiconductor devices includes a testing process where each individual device under test (DUT) is independently monitored and regulated.

Key Features of ITC:

• Precise individual control for high-power devices that can generate up to 4000 watts keeping these chips from overheating and self-destructing during testing.
• Independent Regulation allows for different temperature setpoints or independent I/O channels for each device on a single burn-in board.
• Real-Time Monitoring: performs continuous feedback to detect early signs of failure through either under or over stressing and ensuring that defective parts are accurately screened without damaging healthy ones.

While more expensive than traditional burn-in, ITC produces more consistent stress, and higher quality more dependable results during a burn-in cycle.