2025 Program

As the world of compute continues to grow from consumer devices to supercomputers to edge compute, new generation of products are being created with ever growing complexity. Future product architectures are evolving to supply the increasing demand for compute power, automation, and data. It is essential to work closely across multiple disciplines from silicon design, DFT, and test hardware/software to ensure success in being able to test these new generation of products with minimal test costs and the highest level of quality & reliability. As compute products continue to push fab process geometries in addition to pushing more complex 2.5D & 3D construction processes, this has required more emphasis on increasing test coverage & capacity for probe test solutions. Probe test requirements will demand higher current capability, tighter pitches, & higher test frequencies while sustaining high production lifetimes & test integrity. This will bring a new level of innovation in probe technologies as new metallurgy and construction schemes are being developed along with enhanced test methods across the industry. This keynote presentation will provide a general compute overview & roadmap, methods of innovating new test solutions, and provide wafer probe test needs going forward.

Georg Franz has worked in the Semiconductor Industry for 20 years. After receiving his masters degree in mechanical engineering at the Technical University in Vienna, Austria he worked 7 years at Carinthian Tech Research in Villach, where he developed wafer handling equipment and micromanufacturing machines and conducted finite element simulations.

In 2012 he joined T.I.P.S. Messtechnik, a probe card manufacturer focused on power, automotive and sensor devices. His main field of activity is the advancement of test technologies and the development of new products, especially high voltage test and magnetic sensor stimulation.

Rob Stoner is a Program Manager for the Interface Solution Group (ISG) of Cohu Incorporated. He graduated from Minnesota State University with a BSME and holds an MBA from the University. of St. Thomas. He spent the first 11 years of his career in the Defense industry, where he managed the development and production of avionic and shipboard systems. He joined Cohu in 2021 and has since managed the development of new R&D contactor solutions.

Dr. Veronika Haehnel joined the FE wafer test division at Infineon Dresden in 2017 and is currently as Staff Engineer Material Science responsible for the management and optimization of the probecard processes including database management, cleaning procedures, KPI creation & tracking as well as all quality and audit relevant topics. Initially, she worked as a Senior Engineer Wafer Test for Chipcard products including wafer test monitoring. Prior to joining Infineon she spent 8 years with Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research Dresden in basic research of nano- & microstructured electrodeposited systems. She holds a diploma engineering degree and a PhD in Materials Science from Technische Universität Dresden.

Harald Ibele is the Owner, Technical and Quality Manager of Sigma Sensors, an A2LA ISO17025:2017 accredited Temperature Calibration Laboratory He first joined the Semiconductor Industry in 2003 working for a Microelectronic distributor and established an accredited calibration laboratory in 2005. In 2007 he joined a European thermal chuck manufacturer establishing their presence in the US before relocating to Asia to build their support network in 2012. Harald has extensive experience with temperature aspects of waferprobe, custom temperature solutions, prober sealing and thermal upgrades. After having returned to Europe in 2017 he directed global sales and customer support for thermal chucks before starting his own business in 2019. Sigma Sensors is based in Sigmaringen Germany with a newly established branch in the US. Sigma Sensors performs on site, accredited thermal chuck calibrations and manufactures the made for global mobility Cowboy Wafer. He currently lives in Germany and has 4 children.

Kyle graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree (cum laude) in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Arizona in 2005. He has worked in Germany and in the U.S. for start-ups, mid-size companies, and multinational corporations across the automotive, medical device, and now semiconductor test industries.

Kyle joined the Nidec SV TCL team in late 2015 as the Product Engineering Manager based in Tempe, Arizona. He used his experience from other industries in project management and new product industrialization to improve the operational performance of the product engineering team and quickly came up to speed with the unique aspects of wafer test.

In 2019, Kyle was promoted to Director of Engineering and added overall responsibility for engineering and design to his role. He has focused heavily on removing internal barriers and improving communication to streamline operations, improve quality and performance, and shorten lead time.

In his free time, Kyle enjoys traveling (when Covid allows), golfing, running, and homebrewing.

Raj Varma has over 26 years of industry experience working in Semiconductor, Packaging and Consumer markets. Raj has been with Gel-Pak as the CTO since 2012. Prior to Delphon he was CTO at Neocork, and various R&D & commercial roles at GLS Corp.

Raj has a B.S in Chemical Engineering, M.S. in Polymer Engineering from the University of Akron, and an MBA from the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago. He has presented more than 20 papers at various conferences and holds 6 U.S. and International patents.

• Studies in Material Science and Engineering at FAU Erlangen, Germany in 2
• Ph.D in Material Science at FAU Erlangen, Germany in 2016
• Project Engineer for CVD Diamond coating at DiaCCon GmbH, Fürth, Germany 2016-2017
• Since March 2017: Development of precious metal-based alloys for probing applications, Heraeus Precious Metals, Hanau, Germany

Paul Kim is the head of global sales for GI technology. We have been working together with our partner company (DIT) Disruptive Innovation Technology to perfect a new process to make thin ceramic substrates that can be made into MLC’s and various other products. All the credit for this new technology goes to Mr. Noh, the founding CEO of DIT. I will be the main presenter due to the lack of English proficiency.

Mr. Angelo Rizzo joined Posalux in 2006 and is currently Business Area Manager Electronic.

He is active in the micro-machining world since the beginning of his career and served in different sales and management roles. With a long experience in the micro-drilling/routing of Printed Circuit Boards, he started focusing on the semiconductor industry by introducing high-tech mechanical and Laser machines. More specifically, he was responsible for developing the guide plates and probes micro-machining market. Passionate about technology, today Angelo is working closely with Laser R&D process engineers, the goal being to push applications like square holes and MEMS probes cutting beyond the limit.

Angelo graduated from the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland with a master degree in International Business Development.

Dr. Jeffrey Lam is currently the GM/Vice-President of Engineering at STAr-Quest Technologies. Prior to joining STAr Technologies, Dr. Lam was VP of Product, Test and Failure Analysis with GlobalFoundries for 19 years. He possesses more than 40 years of experience in Process Module, Design Engineering, Product/Yield engineering, Failure Analysis and Test Development Engineering. He has 17 technical patents and more than 100 publications. He has also been the chairman for SEMI “SGPSEA Product & Test Committee” since 2009 and serves as an Adjunct Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore.

Dr. Lam received his B.S and M.S. in Chemical Engineering from UC Berkeley and UC Davis in 1979 and 1981 respectively. He obtained a second M.S in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Santa Clara in 1986. In 2014, he received his PhD from the School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Nanyang Technological University.

Daniel Bock got his Ph.D. in Physics at Carnegie Mellon University in 2006, working on Superconducting Nanowire Bolometers in the NanoFabrication Lab. He joined Form Factors RF Product Group in June of 2012. He led the development of the Custom Calibration Substrate (Custom ISS) product line to supplement the standard ISS line to improve the RF calibration methods for multi-DUT, irregular layout probe cards. He is also investigating the increase in digital signals, moving to PAM4 with higher baud rates, to improve wafer test for these devices. He enjoys camping with his family, as well as playing board games.

Mathias Poik is PhD student at the Automation and Control Institute (ACIN) at TU Wien, Austria. He received his MSc. in Energy Systems and Automation Technology from TU Wien in 2017. His primary research interests are the development of scanning probe-based methods for the evaluation of integrated circuits, and the development of electrical measurement modes for Atomic Force Microscopy. He currently works on a research project aimed at enabling contactless characterization of RF products on wafer-level at high spatial resolution.

Peter Cockburn has worked in the ATE industry for over 30 years at Schlumberger, NPTest, Credence, LTXCredence, Xcerra and now Cohu. He is currently responsible for High Performance Contactor products, including fine-pitch coaxial contactors and probe heads for emerging 5G applications.

After developing realtime and GUI software for ATE systems, he moved into product marketing and launched several new SOC ATE systems and analog test options as well as providing marketing and sales support in USA, Asia and Europe.

As leader of the Test Cell Innovation team, he was responsible for defining and delivering complete test cells to customers to reduce cost, increase uptime and improve quality when testing pressure and motion sensors, microphones and wafer-level packages.

He has an Engineering degree from the University of Southampton, UK.

Ryan Garrison is a Senior Product Business Manager with FormFactor’s Probes BU focused on RF probing solutions. With nearly 20 years at FormFactor, he has held multiple engineering and leadership roles in operations and the development of Analytical RF Probes, Probe Stations, and now Production RF Probes. His current responsibility centers on the business of expanding RF test parallelism for sub-6 GHz and mmW antenna devices. Most recently Ryan lead a team through the development-process-to-product-release of a new probe head effectively doubling the parallelism of RF test using FormFactor’s membrane technology. Prior to joining FormFactor, Ryan graduated from the Oregon State University in Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering.

Georg Franz has worked in the Semiconductor Industry for 20 years. After receiving his masters degree in mechanical engineering at the Technical University in Vienna, Austria he worked 7 years at Carinthian Tech Research in Villach, where he developed wafer handling equipment and micromanufacturing machines and conducted finite element simulations.

In 2012 he joined T.I.P.S. Messtechnik, a probe card manufacturer focused on power, automotive and sensor devices. His main field of activity is the advancement of test technologies and the development of new products, especially high voltage test and magnetic sensor stimulation.

Rob Stoner is a Program Manager for the Interface Solution Group (ISG) of Cohu Incorporated. He graduated from Minnesota State University with a BSME and holds an MBA from the University. of St. Thomas. He spent the first 11 years of his career in the Defense industry, where he managed the development and production of avionic and shipboard systems. He joined Cohu in 2021 and has since managed the development of new R&D contactor solutions.

Dr. Veronika Haehnel joined the FE wafer test division at Infineon Dresden in 2017 and is currently as Staff Engineer Material Science responsible for the management and optimization of the probecard processes including database management, cleaning procedures, KPI creation & tracking as well as all quality and audit relevant topics. Initially, she worked as a Senior Engineer Wafer Test for Chipcard products including wafer test monitoring. Prior to joining Infineon she spent 8 years with Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research Dresden in basic research of nano- & microstructured electrodeposited systems. She holds a diploma engineering degree and a PhD in Materials Science from Technische Universität Dresden.

Harald Ibele is the Owner, Technical and Quality Manager of Sigma Sensors, an A2LA ISO17025:2017 accredited Temperature Calibration Laboratory He first joined the Semiconductor Industry in 2003 working for a Microelectronic distributor and established an accredited calibration laboratory in 2005. In 2007 he joined a European thermal chuck manufacturer establishing their presence in the US before relocating to Asia to build their support network in 2012. Harald has extensive experience with temperature aspects of waferprobe, custom temperature solutions, prober sealing and thermal upgrades. After having returned to Europe in 2017 he directed global sales and customer support for thermal chucks before starting his own business in 2019. Sigma Sensors is based in Sigmaringen Germany with a newly established branch in the US. Sigma Sensors performs on site, accredited thermal chuck calibrations and manufactures the made for global mobility Cowboy Wafer. He currently lives in Germany and has 4 children.

Kyle graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree (cum laude) in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Arizona in 2005. He has worked in Germany and in the U.S. for start-ups, mid-size companies, and multinational corporations across the automotive, medical device, and now semiconductor test industries.

Kyle joined the Nidec SV TCL team in late 2015 as the Product Engineering Manager based in Tempe, Arizona. He used his experience from other industries in project management and new product industrialization to improve the operational performance of the product engineering team and quickly came up to speed with the unique aspects of wafer test.

In 2019, Kyle was promoted to Director of Engineering and added overall responsibility for engineering and design to his role. He has focused heavily on removing internal barriers and improving communication to streamline operations, improve quality and performance, and shorten lead time.

In his free time, Kyle enjoys traveling (when Covid allows), golfing, running, and homebrewing.

Brian Chang is CHPT USA office manager, managing CHPT US sales/design/FAE team. Brian has worked for CHPT since 2003, was a PCB designer until 2005, then got promoted to PCB manager. 2006 setup Hsinchu office and serviced customer locally, 2010 established US office and got promoted as an office manager.

Bengt Haunerland joined ERS electronic GmbH in 2018 and is today Head of Software and Electronics. He has a Master’s degree in Electronics Engineering from Simon Fraser University in Canada.

Pouya Dastmalchi got his PhD in EE from LSU and joined FormFactor in 2016. Worked in probecard design team as an EDE for over 3 years and currently he is an Application Eng. Manager for SoC products working closely with different Semiconductor Wafer Test Groups.

Semiconductors are the building blocks of our modern digital society and allow us to be connected anywhere and everywhere. We interact with semiconductors every day through almost everything we do, whether using our smartphones, personal electronics, connected homes or our cars, which have become digital cockpits, immersed with advanced safety features. All of these digital interactions require massive computing and connectivity power to process, store and transfer data. Join me as we explore innovations in advanced packaging and test technology and how they enable further transformation in our digital society with a focus on the key catalysts of 5G, High Performance Computing, IoT and Automotive applications.

Alan has a degree from the University of Glasgow, Scotland in Theoretical Chemistry, and a doctorate in laser spectroscopy from the University of Cambridge. Whilst at Cambridge he gained a Research Scholarship to study at the Max Plank Institute in Gottingen, Germany. He has worked for several companies specialising in the “Applications of Lasers” and has been working in the field of lasers for over 35 years. At Oxford Lasers, Alan has held a number of positions including managing Research and Development as well as Sales and is currently a Director at Oxford Lasers with responsibility for Business Development. Alan has extensive knowledge on the use of lasers in the area of laser micro-machining covering a multitude of applications in particular the drilling of guide plates used in probe cards for wafer test. He has published numerous technical papers and patents and has written articles for a variety of magazines. Last year at SW Test he was awarded the “People’s Choice Award” for his presentation.

Albert has 40 years of experience in the Robotics/Automation/Semiconductor industries. He started his career in 1982 at IBM implementing Robotics and Automation applications on the RT-PC Unix computers project. In 1988 transferred to Motorola MOS Digital/Analog semiconductor test group as Test Engineer for a decade ending as Test Director. Albert is currently the President/CEO of Soto Technologies which focuses on Prober Cell Controllers that standardize and enhance legacy probers to be more competitive with newer models. Also focuses on Test Data Analysis/STDF tools and non-intrusive machine OEE/Utilization tracking for wafer sort and final test. He has a diverse skill set ranging from hardware/embedded design using MCU/FPGA’s, machine shop skills and C/C++ programming for Embedded/Windows/LINUX systems. He holds a BSEE from University of Puerto Rico and has published articles at IEEE symposiums and is active in Martial Arts.

Steve has 33 years experience in the semiconductor industry. He started his career with Motorola Semiconductor developing products for wireless applications. In 2000 he switched to the ATE equipment market during the birth of the SOC test market bringing multiple generations of systems, instrumentation, applications, and services to market for the past 22 years. Steve is currently the General Manager of the Device Interface Solutions business unit of Teradyne. He holds a Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Florida and a Masters of Business Administration from the University of Alabama. Steve has published over 20 articles in leading industry journals and conferences and is an inventor for more than 10 patents.

Mike holds a BSEE degree from George Mason University in Fairfax VA. He spent the first 14 years of his career working at IBM facilities in East Fishkill, NY and Manassas, VA. Where he worked as test engineer evaluating the degradation of parametric test structures caused by ionizing radiation for IBM’s space products group. Next Mike joined Intel Corporation where he spent 22 years in Hillsboro, OR. Where the majority of those year he worked as a parametric test engineer. The last four years Mike worked as a commodity development engineer managing the creation of wafer level full die probe cards. Mike’s entire semiconductor career has been spent developing test solutions for evaluating next generation silicon process development products. Mike is now a director of new business development and product marketing at Technoprobe.

Jory Twitchell works for NXP Semiconductors and has been with the company for 22 years. He currently works as a hardware development engineer. He oversees the development of wafer test hardware for business lines worldwide working with internal production partners to ensure the hardware meets their requirements. Jory is happy to have the opportunity to be back at SWTW in person to present to everyone.

Tobias Gnausch, Product Manager at JENOPTIK, received his diploma in physics from the University of Jena in 2005. He worked as a mechanical engineer and developer for interferometric stylus measurement systems at BOSCH. In 2008, he joined JENOPTIK as an optical designer for diffractive optical elements and systems. From 2012, he was responsible for the product management of UV- micro optics for Semiconductor Equipment. Beginning of 2016, he took over the product responsibility of a new business sector within the Business Unit Micro-Optics, which included a product development for wafer-level testing of PICs.

Rainer Gaggl, born in 1966, married, 3 kids, holds a PhD in Physics from the Technical University of Graz. He is passionate for micro-mechanics and aviation: 1994 Guiness Book of Records – “The smallest piston aircraft engine in the world.”

Milestones in his career:

• 1996: PhD in Experimental Physics at TU Graz
• 1996-1997: R&D engineer at Philips Display Components, responsible for high voltage processes in electron beam picture tubes production
• 1997: founding T.I.P.S. Messtechnik GmbH as a “spin-off” of Siemens Bauelemente as a one-man company in this time
• to date: Managing Director of T.I.P.S. : Austria, 80+ workforce company in Austria

He is managing director in T.I.P.S. and responsible for product and process development as well as strategic sales activities. The main focus in his work is on test interfaces for High Power Devices, Automotive ASICS, Sensors and MEMS devices, Automotive RADAR. High Voltage, High Currents and probe cards with sensor stimuli are some of his “playgrounds as a physicist” and he holds several patents in that field.

Alberto Pagani received master degree in Electronic Engineering in 2000 from Politecnico di Milano, Italy. In the same year, he joined STMicroelectronics, Agrate Brianza, Italy.

From 2000 to 2006 he worked in wafer sort department as Process and Test Engineer on Flash memories. Since 2006, he is in charge of Test R&D and Competitive Intelligence. He is member of STMicroelectronics Technical Staff and internal teacher. His work is mainly focused on innovative testing / probing technologies and new product / technology development for new markets.

Dr. Pagani’s awards include 2010 Sesames Award and 2010 RFID Italy award. He was also the winner of the 2016 VLSI Test Symposium Best Special Session Award. He holds more than 100 patents in USA, Europe and China in several technical fields.

Erwin Verardi’s Current job: STM, sr. EWS process Eng.
Main job activities: probe card techno qualification, new silicon qualification, data analysis, support for R&D projects, support for Failure Analysis, ww prober software reference
Education: Material Science degree
Add.: Six Sigma Black belt

Salvatore De Siena is R&D Lab Manager, working in Technoprobe Italy headquarter since 2018. Previously he worked as Process Engineer for Technology team and Process Kaizen Engineer – team leader, following in particular probe head manufacturing processes. He is currently responsible for Technoprobe R&D Laboratories.

Dr. Oliver Nagler finalized his diploma degree (Dipl.-Ing.) of aerospace engineering at the Technical University of Munich in 1994 and received his physical doctorate degree (Dr.-Ing.) in electrical engineering from the Bundeswehr der Universität, Munich in 2008. He started his career as a research engineer at the Fraunhofer Institut for Solid State Technology in Munich in 1995. Since 1999, he’s been an employee at Infineon Technologies AG, Neubiberg, Germany, currently in the department of Test Technology and Innovation. He is a lead principal for contact technologies and head of Infineon’s R&D probing lab. Oliver holds several patents and international publications in probing technology and processes. In cooperation with national and international universities, he is regularly supervising bachelor, master, and Ph.D. students.

Francesco Lorenzelli received a Master’s Degree cum Laude in Electrical Engineering at the University of Bologna in October 2020, with the Thesis: “Development of Innovative Algorithms and Tools to Test Advanced Technology Cell Libraries”, with Prof. Cecilia Metra as main supervisor, Martin Omana and Erik Jan Marinissen as co-supervisors, in a joint project with Cadence Design Systems, TU Eindhoven and IMEC.

He is currently a PhD student at IMEC, with a project on testing of circuits for quantum computers. His focus is testing of silicon spin qubit devices at ambient or at mildly lowered temperatures.

Francesco Angione is a Computer Engineering with an M.Sc., Embedded Systems track, obtained from Politecnico di Torino in 2020. Currently, he is a Ph.D. student at Politecnico di Torino in the CAD & Reliability group. His main interests are real-time operating systems, computer architectures, and their dependability applied to automotive System-on-Chip.

Dr. Jeffrey Lam is currently the GM/Vice-President of Engineering at STAr-Quest Technologies. Prior to joining STAr Technologies, Dr Lam was VP of Product, Test and Failure Analysis with GlobalFoundries for 19 years. He possesses more than 40 years of experience in Process Module, Design Engineering, Product/Yield engineering, Failure Analysis and Test Development Engineering. He has 17 technical patents and more than 100 publications. He has been the chairman for SEMI SEA Product & Test Committee since 2009 and serves as an Adjunct Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore.

Dr. Lam received his B.S and M.S. in Chemical Engineering from UC Berkeley and UC Davis in 1979 and 1981 respectively. He obtained a second M.S in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Santa Clara in 1986. In 2014, he received his PhD from the School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Nanyang Technological University.

David Raschko currently works as a Product Marketing Manager at FormFactor where he manages their Apollo product line focused on the Logic and Foundry market. Prior to his current role at FormFactor, David worked as a Product Engineer at FormFactor where he was responsible for developing and growing the mmWave Probe Card business in the 5G AIP market. Raschko received his MBA from Washington State University in 2021 with a finance concentration and completed his M.S. in Applied Physics at the University of Oregon in 2015 with a focus in Optics

In his capacity as Principal Test Strategist, Dave Armstrong works directly with customers and Advantest’s global R&D teams to define develop and deliver creative solutions to the most demanding test challenges. Additionally, Dave is chairs multiple working groups exploring the photonic device testing roadmap.

Prior to joining Advantest in 2004, Dave spent over two decades in HP/Agilent’s IC test group working with customers to test industry leading devices. Prior to joining HP Dave worked in the semiconductor industry in areas of IC and system design, product/yield engineering, as well as test engineering. Dave Armstrong received degrees in Electrical, Computer, and Environmental Engineering from the University of Michigan in 1974.

John is a Senior Division Director at Yole Intelligence and has more than 20 years of experience working in the semiconductor industry. His special areas of interest cover probe cards, test and burn-in sockets, device interface boards, and the key enabling technologies used in wafer fab equipment.

Educational background

• 1974: Graduating Kyoto University engineering department precise engineering department master’s course

Professional Career

• 1974-1997: Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.
• Engaged in Machine Tool Design and R&D
• 2001-2003: OHT Corporation
• Experienced FPD Inspection Machine Division Manager
• 2005-2008: Apex Advanced Technology Corporation
• Experienced Director Production general manager,
• 2012: Founded Probe Innovation, Inc.
• 2015 Founded Probe Innovation USA, LLC

MJ has been with FormFactor for over 10 years and is currently serving as Director of Product Marketing in the probes business unit. In this role, he has responsibility for Memory Probe card solutions specifically for the DRAM market. With over 25 years of experience in the Semiconductor Memory industry, MJ has held various roles in product marketing, sales, product engineering at Formfactor, SK Hynix, Micron, and Samsung.