Executing an Industry first LAB to FAB Standardization with Analog Devices Inc.,

 

Analog Devices, Inc.’s (ADI) partnered with Soliton for a Lab to Fab standardization initiative aimed at achieving significant efficiency improvement across the lifecycle. Soliton developed a comprehensive, first-of-its-kind solution, including a low-code workflow automation interface that has enabled global teams to collaborate efficiently, optimize test workflows, and achieve significant quantitative and qualitative benefits.  

 

“We needed to develop standardization in the evaluation labs, and Soliton has been instrumental in that process over several years, working directly with individual lab teams and developing a common framework that is now supporting many diverse teams. We have seen the tools as particularly useful during company mergers as it is scaled for global use within the company.”  

 – Sr. Director – Test Enablement Group, Global Operations and Technology, Analog Devices 

The Customer Requirement

Analog Devices, Inc (ADI) has been a pioneer and a leader in the semiconductor industry for well over half a century. The Senior Leadership from ADI came up with an ambitious goal to achieve over 30% efficiency improvement through a first-of-its-kind Lab to Fab standardization initiative and chose to partner with Soliton to build this solution. 

Solution

Working closely with the stakeholders at ADI, Soliton understood the process and technology in place. Soliton conceptualized an end solution and defined the sequence to approach the solution implementation. This solution was implemented in a record time, combining technology, processes, and people support. 

Automation Framework

Soliton developed a powerful, low-code workflow automation interface for ADI that offers end-to-end test standardization. It is packed with features that allow a validation engineer or production test engineer to quickly write test programs using out-of-box instrument drivers and commonly used coding modules, enabling them to easily shift to a standardized workflow. It offers:

⇒ Correlated measurement data from silicon wake-up, bench data collection, and production test.

⇒ Instrument-agnostic measurements enabled by a hardware abstraction layer.

⇒ Single-site selection for lab testing and multi-site selection for production site testing.

⇒ Code sharing across benches and product lines through a globally accessible repository.

⇒ Out-of-the-box interface, protocol support, and ADI’s standard data formats for register mapping.

⇒ Plug and play system-level validation such as EMC testing.

⇒ Interactive debugging environment for validation engineers, design engineers and application engineers.

⇒ Simulation features that enable pre-silicon testing of design files even before the silicon is ready and when instruments are unavailable.

AUTOMATION FRAMEWORK

Lab to Fab Standardization

Using the developed automation framework, ADI engineers have been able to achieve Lab-to-Fab standardization by reusing code written for bench validation in production testing. Production engineers access shared code from the global repository, and the framework ensures that the abstraction layer-related overheads are removed to optimize the speed and efficiency required for production tests.

Support

A 360-degree support system architected by Soliton ensures quick adoption and success of every engineer working with the standardization infrastructure.

The support system includes:
(1) Extensive training material,
(2) Dedicated help desk,
(3) Forums for user community collaboration, and
(4) An infrastructure development team focused on framework improvements.

A quarterly newsletter is circulated across ADI’s global sites and highlights best practices, product updates, and success stories of various ADI teams with the standardization infrastructure.

Implementation

Soliton developed this solution in a phased manner, starting first by identifying what gives the most ROI to ADI, and then by following a user-defined roadmap. 

IMPLEMENTATION

Quantitative Benefits of the Engagement

>30% efficiency improvement for bench validation, calculated by the engineering hours saved due to automated workflow improvement 
A maximum of 87% test engineering time saved during product reuse 
Received excellent return on investment within the very first year of adoption, and subsequently, over 7X return on investment in 5 years 
User onboarding time reduced to <2 weeks during internal transfer and attrition 

In addition to the quantitative, measurable outcomes, the engagement also resulted in qualitative benefits. Some of the benefits include:

  • Validation schedule compression, that is, the number of iterations that a design typically goes through for a new product introduction is reduced, resulting in faster time-to-market.
  • Effective lab asset utilization.
  • Quality improvement with increased test coverage.
  • Increased collaboration and reuse among globally distributed teams through standardization and a central repository.
  • Effective internal attrition management and onboarding cost.
  • Early identification of Si bugs using Pre-Silicon simulation models in the bench.

Global Adoption of Standardization

Summary

Soliton assembled and reorganized a cross-functional team that took care of the project’s needs as it progressed from stage to stage. This ability to quickly map customer requirements and reorganize the team to come up with creative solutions has been instrumental in the initiative’s success.

As more and more test engineers continue to adopt this central repository-driven automation framework, it has fostered standardization and collaboration, facilitated the seamless movement of engineers between different groups and functions, and enabled faster release to market.

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