About the ETC Laboratory

General Information

The Electronics Testing & Characterization Laboratory is located in Room 114B of the Stefani building in the University of Puerto Rico. The facility provides 270 sq. ft. devoted to the task of designing and integration of test hardware and automation software. The lab was established in the summer of 2009 and was completed in the spring semester of 2010 with the major sponsorship of Texas Instruments (TI) and other contributers like Keithley Instruments. It currently provides 5 different workspaces for students working on projects in the area of Electronics Testing and Automation Design among others.

The facility is equipped with a Probe Station for performing on wafer measurements, an oven for testing across different temperature ranges, two Keithley 2612 source measurement units, power supplies, pulse/pattern generator, a 600MHz LeCroy Wavesurfer and a digital multimeter; all of which are fully programmable. Details about the equipment in the lab can be found in the Resources section of this site.

For more details about previous and ongoing projects visit the Projects section of this site.

Background

Origins of ETC

Following the UPRM-TI Collaborative Program which was established in 1999, the ETC lab was created in order to complement the Integrated Circuit Design Laboratory (ICDL) with a laboratory specifically dedicated to testing. With this addition the ECE Department is closer to fully encompass the major fields involved in the area of Semiconductor Manufacturing.

Motivation

The main goal of the ETC lab is to help prepare students in the area of Electronics Testing & Automation Design by helping them acquire the knowledge and skills they will need to be successfull in this field.

Our Sponsors

Texas Instruments

Texas Instruments (TI) is a global analog and digital semiconductor IC design and manufacturing company. In addition to analog technologies, digital signal processing (DSP) and microcontroller (MCU) semiconductors, TI designs and manufactures semiconductor solutions for analog and digital embedded and application processing.

Keithley Instruments

Keithley Instruments, Inc. designs, develops, manufactures and markets complex electronic instruments and systems geared to the specialized needs of electronics manufacturers for high-performance production testing, process monitoring, product development and research. The Company has approximately 500 products used to source, measure, connect, control or communicate direct current (DC), radio frequency (RF) or optical signals. Product offerings include integrated systems solutions, along with instruments and personal computer (PC) plug-in boards that can be used as system components or stand-alone solutions. The Company's customers are engineers, technicians and scientists in manufacturing, product development and research functions.