5G

Testing 5G devices? Teradyne’s RF customers count on us to lead the way

Teradyne test solutions are at the forefront of the 5G test era. Why? We work with the leading semiconductor manufacturers and provide optimized test coverage for the major wireless standards. From emerging millimeter wave devices to the traditional sub-6GHz, our test solutions are already leading the way.

As consumer products continue to use more wireless spectrum, Teradyne’s RF semiconductor test solutions are ahead of the evolution. As test experts, we know how critical it is to anticipate device trends and our customer’s engineering and production test needs. With a focus on performance, throughput and ease-of-use, Teradyne delivers cost-effective test solutions for current and future generations of RF devices.

Our solutions are deployed around the globe to Integrated Device Manufacturers (IDMs), fabless semiconductor design centers and Outsourced Semiconductor Assembly and Test (OSAT) companies. Teradyne’s RF semiconductor test customers count on us to keep innovating device test and keep driving down the cost of test—and have for over 25 years.

What’s Driving 5G Market Demand?

Enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) has two key components that will drive adoption in the 5G economy. First, is extending cellular coverage into a broader range of structures including office buildings, industrial parks, shopping malls and large venues. Second, is improving capacity to handle a much greater number of devices (e.g. cell phones) using higher volumes of data, especially in localized areas. This improvement to the network will enable more efficient data transmission which will be an important driver for increased use of broadband applications on mobile networks.

5G’s improved low power requirements, the ability to operate in licensed and unlicensed spectrum, and its ability to provide deeper and more flexible coverage will drive significantly lower costs within Massive Internet of Things (MIoT). This, in turn, will enable increased scale of the Internet of Things (IoT) and will drive greater uptake of mobile technologies to address MIoT applications.

5G Makes ‘Can You Hear Me Now’ Obsolete

Mission Critical Services (MCS) represents a new market opportunity for mobile technology. This growth area for 5G will support applications that require high reliability, ultra-low latency connectivity with strong security and availability. This will allow wireless technology to provide an ultra-reliable connection to support applications where failure is not an option such as autonomous vehicles and remote operation of complex automation equipment.

How We Use Phones Has Changed, the RF Devices Have Changed, How We Test Has Changed

5G technologies are required for cellular network providers to keep pace with consumer’s data demands. It is projected that individual data consumption will increase roughly 7-8x by 2022. Smartphones will account for about 86% of mobile data traffic by the end of 2021 and video will account for 78% of the world’s mobile data usage in 2021. These consumer trends are influencing the traditional transceiver architecture and test needs.

How does this change RF device test? At mmWave frequencies, there is the use of antenna arrays driving higher port count on test instruments. Second, signal beamforming requires new and innovative contacted and Over-The-Air (OTA) test techniques. And, rapidly increasing growth rate and demand is driving site count and throughput improvements at record pace.

Teradyne’s 5G Device Test Solutions

Teradyne’s UltraFLEX with UltraWave24 instrumentation is one of the industry’s leading RF test solutions with a large customer install base. As the wireless spectrum usage expands, existing UltraWave24 customers can extend the capability of their UltraWave24 to an UltraWaveMX44 and UltraWaveMX20 for full test coverage of IoT, WiFi, LTE, Ultra Wideband and 5G standards while maintaining complete software, DIB and docking compatibility.

Lowest Cost of 5G Device Test

Achieving the lowest cost of test for 5G mmWave devices means achieving the highest test-cell throughput by scaling up multisite testing.  Increasing the number of test sites requires test instrumentation to have a large number of RF ports.  Teradyne’s instruments provide 32 mmWave ports per instrument and up to 128 mmWave ports per system.

The UltraWaveMX44 and the UltraWaveMX20 use a single slot in the tester and can be used to upgrade the large install base of existing UltraWave24 customers. Upgrades can be made with zero system configuration changes allowing all legacy and future devices to be tested on the same test system.  In other words, only Teradyne offers 100% configuration compatibility for all existing test applications and devices while testing the future.

Fastest Time to the 5G Market

Whether you are testing 5G devices at wafer sort, final package test, OTA or integrated module, the same mmWave instrument is used for production and engineering characterization. This enables a common test program code to be leveraged into any testing scenario.

Due to the instruments high density port count, the need for Device Interface Board (DIB) circuitry is limited and the connection from the instrument channel to the Device Under Test (DUT) is accomplished with direct cable connections on the DIB.

Teradyne’s superior ESA Modulation Toolkit allows test program developers to quickly generate the complex 5G modulated waveforms required to test devices as though operating in a real-world environment.  In addition, industry leading IG-XL software provides interactive debug displays that enable the developer to program the instrument through graphical block diagramsspeeding the development process and helping to eliminate programming mistakes.

These are just a few of the many innovative ways Teradyne’s 5G test solution enables your devices to get to market on time.

Highest Performance for 5G Device Test

Teradyne guarantees its industry leading specifications for all its microwave instruments for any system configuration in the engineering lab or on the production floor for wafer sort, final package test or module test.

As a leader in providing wireless test instruments, Teradyne understands how critical instrument component parameters will vary with the temperature of the test environment. A variation in instrument component temperature causes variations in instrument specifications which will impact test results, guardbands and ultimately yield problems.

Our UltraWave instrument family is unique in stabilizing the instrument channel for accurate and repeatable test measurements. Our patented thermal design provides active stabilization for both cooling and heating. With no additional hardware, environmental changes (e.g. ambient temperature) are corrected with internal calibration standards on every module on every instrument.

As an example, the UltraWaveMX44 delivers better than 1.25° phase and 0.2dB linearity accuracy with full instrument coverage for beamforming test. This instrument provides frequency coverage for 24-44 GHz carrier frequencies covering 5G mmWave bands in the U.S., Asia and EU/UK and 6-20 GHz carrier frequencies supporting device intermediate frequency (IF) interfaces.

When it comes to characterization and production testing of the newest devices for 5G wireless standards, Teradyne has a comprehensive solution to provide the best test economics and fastest time to production while achieving the best yield performance in the industry.

UltraWaveMX44

The new UltraWaveMX44 instrument enables faster time to market and higher product yields for semiconductor devices used in emerging mmWave applications. By extending the UltraWave24 capability up to 44GHz with the UltraWaveMX44, UltraFLEX customers can test the 5G-NR standard while maintaining full DIB and docking compatibility.

UltraWaveMX20

The new UltraWaveMX20 instrument, based on IG-XL software, enables faster time to market and high product yields with industry leading performance. Each UltraWaveMX20 provides 16 mmWave ports in the test system with the ability to configure up to 64 mmWave ports for high site count testing.