Credence Systems Corporation (NASDAQ: CMOS), aprovider of test solutions for the worldwide consumer semiconductorindustry, announced today that Ralink (TSE: 3534), one of the world'sleading manufacturers of WLAN chipsets used for Wi-Fi, mobile and embeddedapplications, has selected the Diamond(TM) 40RF platform from Credence totest its 802.11n single-chip solutions for Wi-Fi communications.
Ralink has selected the Diamond 40RF (D40 RF) for production testing of itsnewest devices, the RT3070, the industry's smallest 802.11n USB single chipas client devices and other 11n single-chip solutions. The RT3070 is highlyintegrated and cost-effective for small form factor and low powerapplications. In an 8mm x 8mm QFN package, this chip solution benefitsfrom the capability of the D40 RF to meet requirements for RF and digitaltesting as well as massive multi-site testing. Ralink will also utilizethe versatile D40 RF to test monolithically integrated RF transmitters,receivers, systems on chip (SoC), and 10/100Mbps Ethernet physical layerinterfaces. Additionally, Ralink expects to drive numerous Diamond 40RFsystems with their outsource assembly and test (OSAT) partners in Taiwan,benefiting from the platform's ability to deliver tremendous throughputwith a high degree of parallelism for production efficiency and lowestoverall cost of production test.
"We chose the D40 RF because of its qualified capability to test our802.11n SoC. Its ability to test RF, mixed signal and digital in a singleplatform is ideal," said Dr. Dennis Lo, Senior Vice President of RalinkTechnology. "The current RF and digital SoC solutions on Credence'splatform were qualified and proven to meet our production requirements. TheD40 RF is highly cost-effective, critical to our bottom-line operations aswe seek to deliver the performance, interoperability, ease of use andsecurity demanded by our business andconsumer-based customers."
The Diamond 40RF test system combines analog, digital, mixed signal, and RFtest instrumentation to support a wide range of consumer IC device test.Incorporating Credence's patented MVNA(TM) (Modulated Vector NetworkAnalysis) technology, the D40 RF adds wireless test capabilities for mobilephone, WLAN, WiMAX and ZigBee devices. Offering from 10 to up to 40 slots,the D40 RF supports over 3000 pins for very large ASIC testing, or massivemulti-site test requirements ( > 16 sites) in a modular system architecturethat allows the tester infrastructure to grow as the number of sitesexpands, maintaining test economics.
