Aehr Receives Order for FOX-XP™ System for Production Wafer Level Burn-in of Next Generation Silicon Photonics Integrated Circuits

FREMONT, Calif., May 09, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Aehr Test Systems (NASDAQ: AEHR), a worldwide supplier of semiconductor test and production burn-in equipment, today announced it has received the first order for a new high-power configuration of its FOX-XP™ system for production wafer level burn-in of next generation silicon photonics integrated circuits (ICs) from a current major silicon photonics customer.

This FOX-XP multi-wafer test and burn-in system is configured to enable cost-effective production test of the next generation of silicon photonics ICs, which can require up to two to four times as much power for full wafer test, burn-in, and stabilization of the silicon photonics devices. Shipment of this new higher-power configured FOX-XP is scheduled for the first quarter of 2024.

Gayn Erickson, President and CEO of Aehr Test Systems, commented, “We are excited to receive this first order for this system configuration from one of the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturers and expect them to order additional production systems as they ramp capacity for these devices. This new FOX production system configuration expands the market opportunities of the FOX-XP system, as it’s able to test, burn-in, and stabilize up to nine 300mm wafers in parallel with up to 3.5 kW of power per wafer, which is beyond the wafer parallelism and power capacity of any system on the market. The system is also configured to allow direct docking to Aehr’s new fully automated FOX WaferPak Aligner and material handling system.

“Multiple major semiconductor suppliers and foundries have announced their plans to manufacture and integrate silicon photonics into multi-chip packages, often now referred to as co-packaged devices or heterogenous integration, such as high-performance microprocessors, graphics processors, and processor to peripheral device chipsets. These new devices have been predicted to dramatically improve the communication bandwidth between semiconductor devices beyond the bottle neck of traditional electrical interfaces used today. The challenge is that the devices individually can require a long production burn-in to weed out early failures or long stress tests to stabilize them before they can be assembled in the package with the other devices. This drives the need for high volume, low cost, burn-in of these devices in wafer form, which is exactly what Aehr’s FOX-XP family of test and burn-in systems have been proven to successfully achieve.

“Aehr’s FOX-XP system uses proprietary thermal chucks with a very high thermally conductive heat transfer fluid that allows direct thermal conduction transfer to apply and/or remove the wafer heat extremely efficiently and uniformly. This enables the system to control each wafer temperature very accurately at a temperature that ensures that the maximum stress conditions are applied without over stressing any devices in the middle or at the edges of the wafer where typical issues would occur on such high-power wafers.

“Our FOX systems use our proprietary and patented WaferPak full wafer contactors that contact each device under test using precision current and voltage sources and independent measurement instruments to detect and ensure 100% traceability that every device was tested properly to the test recipe for voltage, current, power, and temperature.

“The FOX-XP with the optional fully integrated FOX WaferPak Aligner uses these proprietary WaferPak full wafer contactors and enables high volume, hands-free operation using Front Opening Unified Pods (FOUPs), factory integration with SECs/GEM communication protocols, and is capable of automated material movement of wafer FOUPs with mobile robots or overhead material handling systems. The integrated WaferPak Aligner supports 100mm, 150mm, 200mm, and 300mm wafer sizes using industry standard wafer cassettes and FOUPs, which allows customers to easily support multiple wafer sizes and to move and align the wafers automatically into our proprietary WaferPaks and place the WaferPaks into and out of our multi-wafer FOX-XP systems that test and burn-in up to 18 wafers at a time.

“Adding automation through our new Aligner gives our wafer-level test and burn-in offering even greater value, as well as opens up several large incremental markets to Aehr such as high-volume processors and chipsets with integrated photonics transceivers, flash and DRAM memories, and also higher-mix devices requiring extremely high reliability and 100% burn-in such as automotive microcontrollers and sensors.”

The FOX-XP system, available with multiple WaferPak Contactors (full wafer test) or multiple DiePak™ Carriers (singulated die/module test) configurations, is capable of functional test and burn-in/cycling of integrated devices such as silicon carbide (SiC) power devices, silicon photonics as well as other optical devices, 2D and 3D sensors, flash memories, Gallium Nitride (GaN), magnetic sensors, microcontrollers, and other leading-edge ICs in either wafer form factor, before they are assembled into single or multi-die stacked packages, or in singulated die or module form factor. 

About Aehr Test Systems
Headquartered in Fremont, California, Aehr Test Systems is a worldwide provider of test systems for burning-in semiconductor devices in wafer level, singulated die, and package part form, and has installed over 2,500 systems worldwide. Increased quality and reliability needs of the Automotive and Mobility integrated circuit markets are driving additional test requirements, incremental capacity needs, and new opportunities for Aehr Test products in package, wafer level, and singulated die/module level test. Aehr Test has developed and introduced several innovative products, including the ABTS™ and FOX-P™ families of test and burn-in systems and FOX WaferPak™ Aligner, FOX WaferPak Contactor, FOX DiePak^® Carrier and FOX DiePak Loader. The ABTS system is used in production and qualification testing of packaged parts for both lower power and higher power logic devices as well as all common types of memory devices. The FOX-XP and FOX-NP systems are full wafer contact and singulated die/module test and burn-in systems used for burn-in and functional test of complex devices, such as leading-edge silicon carbide-based power semiconductors, memories, digital signal processors, microprocessors, microcontrollers, systems-on-a-chip, and integrated optical devices. The FOX-CP system is a new low-cost single-wafer compact test and reliability verification solution for logic, memory and photonic devices and the newest addition to the FOX-P product family. The WaferPak Contactor contains a unique full wafer probe card capable of testing wafers up to 300mm that enables IC manufacturers to perform test and burn-in of full wafers on Aehr Test FOX systems. The DiePak Carrier is a reusable, temporary package that enables IC manufacturers to perform cost-effective final test and burn-in of both bare die and modules. For more information, please visit Aehr Test Systems’ website at www.aehr.com.

Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Forward-looking statements generally relate to future events or Aehr’s future financial or operating performance. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements because they contain words such as "may," "will," "should," "expects," "plans," "anticipates,” “going to,” "could," "intends," "target," "projects," "contemplates," "believes," "estimates," "predicts," "potential," or "continue," or the negative of these words or other similar terms or expressions that concern Aehr’s expectations, strategy, priorities, plans, or intentions. Forward-looking statements in this press release include, but are not limited to, future requirements and orders of Aehr’s new and existing customers; bookings forecasted for proprietary WaferPak™ and DiePak consumables; and expectations related to long-term demand for Aehr’s productions and the attractiveness of key markets. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are also subject to other risks and uncertainties, including those more fully described in Aehr’s recent Form 10-K, 10-Q and other reports filed from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Aehr disclaims any obligation to update information contained in any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date of this press release.

Contacts:

Aehr Test Systems Vernon Rogers EVP of Sales & Marketing (510) 623-9400 x215 vrogers@aehr.com

MKR Investor Relations Inc. Todd Kehrli or Jim Byers Analyst/Investor Contact (213) 277-5550 aehr@mkr-group.com