An automated testing system for the RD51 VMM hybrid and yield measurement of the first production batches

TL;DR

This paper describes an automated testing system for the RD51 VMM hybrid, enabling efficient quality assessment and yield measurement of production batches, with feedback to improve manufacturing processes.

Contribution

It introduces a new automated testing system for the VMM hybrid and demonstrates its effectiveness in measuring yield and identifying failure modes.

Findings

Yield exceeds cost-effective thresholds

Automated system classifies chips and hybrids efficiently

Failure analysis informs production improvements

Abstract

We present the development of an automated testing system for the VMM hybrid of the RD51 collaboration. The VMM hybrid is a new front-end board for the RD51 common readout system, the Scalable Readout System, and will become the workhorse for the next decade to read out Micro-Pattern Gaseous Detectors. It uses the VMM chip developed for the ATLAS New Small Wheel to convert charge signals from detectors to digital data. Our testing system automatically characterises the quality of the VMM chips on the hybrid after production during multiple tests. Results are evaluated to classify the chips and hybrids and uploaded to a database. We evaluated those results for the first two production batches to measure the production yield. The yield is better than the threshold below which chip testing on a wafer level offers financial benefits. Observations on prominent chip failures were propagated back to the hybrid production process to further increase the yield for future productions.