Volume Testing Microwave Devices

The demand for semiconductor devices used in high-data-rate RF applications like smart cell phones and wireless local area networks (WLANs) is growing. RF automatic test equipment (ATE) is used for the high-volume production testing of semiconductor devices used in these applications. RF ATE systems are composed of many different instruments. The instruments are similar in function to those that are found in a typical bench setup, for example: dc instruments used to bias the device under test (DUT); digital instruments used to setup the DUT and RF and baseband instruments used to send and receive signals to test the DUT.