DFT Digest

Do you want to know what I really like about ITC? Well, before I tell you, let me say up front that I don’t go to that many conferences and/or trade-shows. But ones that I’ve either been to, or have peripherally kept track of, don’t seem to be as rich in this particular kind of content that I’m talking about. Perhaps it’s because it’s sponsored mainly by the IEEE Computer Society, and not so much by vendors – vendor’s content is limited to the exhibition floor and certain time slots during the program for presentations. Is it because there’s less research material? No, there’s plenty of that. So what, you ask, is one my favorite parts of ITC?

The tutorials and workshops! ITC is a 3-day conference, with an exhibition floor, surrounded by technical sessions, keynotes and panels like any other conference. But in addition to all that, the International Test Conference also hosts two full days of tutorials before the conference starts, and a day of workshops at the end – which is why they call it “Test Week“. So what? So, not only can one go and hear about the latest freaky ATPG algorithm for minimizing test power in wireless circuits, but one can also learn about the latest best-in-industry methodologies and practices.

So this year, according to the program, there are 5 tutorials on Sunday (Nov 1) and 4 on Monday (Nov 2).  Three workshops will be held on Thursday and Friday (Nov 5-6).   Subjects vary from nuts and bolts mixed signal test (tutorial 1, Analyzing, Modeling and Understanding High-Speed Interfaces Using Time Domain Reflectometry) to economics (tutorial 12, The Economics of Test and Testability). The workshops start in the afternoon on Thursday, and extend into a full day on Friday. The three workshops deal with high-speed analog circuits, design for reliability, and defect-driven test.

Tutorials and workshops cost extra, but seem well worth the cost for a deep dive into one of the many subjects covered.

See you next week!