Aehr Test Systems (NASDAQ: AEHR), a worldwide supplier of semiconductor test and reliability qualification equipment, today announced it has received orders totaling $1.4 million for WaferPak™ Contactors from its lead silicon carbide customer for production test and burn-in of the customer’s line of silicon carbide devices. The orders include additional WaferPaks to meet production capacity of previously designed and qualified WaferPaks as well as another new silicon carbide design win.
This customer is a leading Fortune 500 supplier of semiconductor devices with a significant customer base in the automotive semiconductor market, and is using Aehr’s FOX-XP™ system’s unique test and burn-in capabilities to ensure the highest device quality for high volume production burn-in and infant mortality screening of silicon carbide devices at wafer level for electric vehicle power modules.
Gayn Erickson, President and CEO of Aehr Test Systems, commented, “These orders from our lead silicon carbide customer for our proprietary WaferPak Contactors accompanies the order we announced on June 1st for an additional FOX-XP™ production test system and reflects their increased high volume production capacity needs. This FOX-XP system is configured to test eighteen silicon carbide wafers in parallel while contacting and testing 100% of the devices on each wafer. These WaferPaks enable the FOX-XP system to make electrical and thermal contact to the silicon carbide wafer and not only test and burn-in 100% of the devices on each wafer in parallel, but also accurately monitor the temperature of each WaferPak to ensure that the wafer under test is getting to the correct burn-in conditions as well as apply and monitor the electrical conditions on each and every device independently. This allows us to guarantee that each device is properly tested and burned in as well as determine exactly when a device fails in time.
“Being able to ensure a valid test and burn-in of these silicon carbide devices and monitor exactly when a device fails is critical to being able to provide the quality and reliability needed to address several markets, but particularly for the electric vehicle market that is about to see incredible growth. We expect this customer will order a significant number of FOX™ systems, WaferPaks and related consumables that they have forecasted to purchase from Aehr over the next several years.
“Silicon carbide continues to be promising as a key growth driver for Aehr, and we anticipate that silicon carbide wafer level burn-in will become the industry standard for low cost and 100% traceability for burn-in and reliability screening. The power semiconductor market for electric vehicles is expected to triple between 2020 and 2026, growing at a 25.7% CAGR to $5.6 billion, according to a March 2021 report from Yole Développement research. In addition, a July 2020 report from Deloitte forecasts total EV sales will grow from 2.5 million in 2020 to 11.2 million in 2025, a CAGR of 29%, before reaching 31.1 million by 2030 and securing approximately 32% of the total market share for new car sales.”
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 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 formfactor, before they are assembled into single or multi-die stacked packages, or in singulated die or module form factor.