P2 Prototype Status
cgracey
Posts: 14,133
Things went quiet with OnSemi, so I asked the project manager what was going on. She said they had a mishap with the probe card, so they had to send it out for repair. Meanwhile, they are blind-building some chips for us and will do a proper wafer sort once the probe card returns.
Comments
Hehe, you need a wry grin at the lowest of tech mishaps, that can occur in the highest tech companies...
When do they expect to be able to probe wafers ? A problem with blind-built parts, if you have no idea they have passed any tests at all.]
Do OnSemi have enough probe ability that can at least do a Vcc/Icc ramp ?
Praying for Parallax, the Propeller, and Chip too.
Jmg, I imagine they won't be able to do anything with the wafers until the probe card is okay. It interfaces the ATE machine to the die sites on a wafer. Here is a picture. You can see that there's not much that could go wrong:
IMHO, any non completely bad news are to be received as good news!
At the end, some samples will finally reach their proper destiny: your hands!
The Propeller 2 is your territory, you know it better than anyone else.
And @Whit
I'm seconding you, with my own prays.
Henrique
I was about to ask this question since you'd announced that OnSemi will be forwarding some pre-production samples to you, mounted into some machined lqfp frames, covered with some epoxy resin (black-colored, I supose).
Out of curiosity, could some transparent resin (UV opaque, for sure) be used in place of a non light transmissive one?
Neat idea! I will ask them about this.
Wafer design is known only in the rarefied world of high tech. We are probably really close to the P2...if the probe card means the existing circuitry is awaiting validation.
This will be great if this can be done. I mean, forget about light sensors, we will have them built into every smartpin and every exposed structure on the chip!
IIRC Micron came up with image sensors instead of DRAM this way
Even chip-scale packages have problems when exposed to bright light with increased leakage affecting the brown-out detector etc.
I know short-wave UV was used for erasing EPROMs but the first phototransistors were normal germanium transistors when they made them in glass cans painted black. Scratch the paint off and you had yourself a phototransistor.
@lardom - there are companies that specialize in these things since they have very fine mechanical impedance controlled probes etc so it is very easy to have a "mishap".
I was wondering how close to an almost-perfect, hemispherical-shape format the resin could be safely cured, due to surface tension... Without flowing to a flat surface during the process (in the suposition that the curing of the resin does actualy generates some heat).
An IR-camera voyeuring at the various sections, individualy glowing, when activated by software...
IIRC, there was a Sony image sensor, sensible to visible light, IR and also UV....at the same time.
Mr. Hitchcock would ROFL, in his tomb!
They will be able to do a post-package test on the blind-built parts, so we could be confident about their digital quality.
They will send us some bare die.
I asked her, "How soon?"
https://maxmax.com/maincamerapage/uv-vis-ir
P.S. Chip, please, forget the UV-opaque request.
Let it free! A metallic label could be glued over the lid, to protect from against UV, when needed.
Post edited: forget it.
best to stick with what they are used to, anyways.....
That's Good News....
do they include a Icc/Vcc signature type capture - the boot-stages should be quite identifiable ?
RCFAST, & reset exit timings, then Verilog ROM then Serial ROM....
Do you mean after some fail wafer probe ? Be a shame to ship what might be a working die, as bare die ....
Be sure to have heard that before too...
You mean like with one of these
http://www.irlabs.com/IREM-SIL.html
Thanks! Chip. That's a cool picture.
Haven't heard a peep from OnSemi since the last news I posted.
Fingers crossed
By the way: found, that ' is not a tag that shows, something is left out, or the rest of the line is only to confuse, it's an address operator. Great.
Hehe, that depends on the errata, that comes next...
I still have tortilla dreams, but I'd need to restart with a much smaller equipment set that would allow for development with small batches. My wife hates that idea. She's been in a good mood since those trucks left.
The new owners of all our equipment run a chain of retaurants in Chicago and are expanding into tortilla production.
Here are pictures of the trucks being loaded yesterday, plus one of the empty room.
Now you have room for some big tools like CNC machines and laser cutters! Imagine the things you could make!
The only feature I really want in the P2 is having it in my hands as a real chip!
Forum software doesn't allow modifying pictures later.
Sure it does, kinda. In the other Leave a Comment box at the end of the screen just attach a file and insert image, grab the link and put it in the post you want to edit (which can be open at the same time). You might need to resize it though since you need to insert the image. Haven't tried manually adding bbcode size tags though.
I do this all the time when I want to update or add an image.