| Market Capitalization (Millions $) |
761 |
| Shares
Outstanding (Millions) |
41 |
| Employees |
493 |
| Revenues (TTM) (Millions $) |
179 |
| Net Income (TTM) (Millions $) |
4 |
| Cash Flow (TTM) (Millions $) |
-8 |
| Capital Exp. (TTM) (Millions $) |
17 |
Pdf Solutions Inc
We offer comprehensive data solutions that enable organizations across the semiconductor ecosystem to improve product yield and quality, as well as operational efficiency for increased profitability. Our products and services include proprietary software, professional services based on proven methodologies and delivered via third-party cloud-hosting platforms for software-as-a-service ("SaaS"), electrical measurement hardware tools, and physical intellectual property ("IP") for integrated circuit ("IC") designs. We generate revenue from two sources: Analytics and Integrated Yield Ramp. We monetize our offerings through contract fees for on-premise licenses, SaaS, and other professional services, as well as a value-based, variable fee or royalty on our historical integrated yield ramp ("IYR") engagements, which we call Gainshare.
Our products and services have been sold to integrated device manufacturers ('IDMs'), fabless semiconductor companies, foundries, equipment manufacturers, electronics manufacturing suppliers ('EMS'), original device manufacturers ('ODMs'), out-sourced semiconductor assembly and test ('OSATs'), and system houses. We are headquartered in Santa Clara, California and also operate worldwide with offices in Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan.
Many Fortune 500 companies in the semiconductor ecosystem use our products and services to achieve smart manufacturing goals by connecting and controlling equipment, collecting data generated during manufacturing and test operations, and performing advanced analytics and machine learning to enable profitable, high-volume manufacturing. For example, our foundry customers use our solutions to generate and analyze key manufacturing data, reducing the time required for technology development and providing their fabless customers with a higher yielding process with improved electrical performance, both of which are critical metrics for market success. Higher yields in less time can also mean fewer total raw materials and process runs, lowering total costs for customers and minimizing environmental impact.
Our primary software products and software and hardware systems include the following:
Exensio Platform. Our separately-offered Exensio software products address the big data manufacturing challenge of today's advanced process nodes and highly integrated products, by providing a common environment throughout the supply chain for different data types, including inline and end-of-line metrology, yield, parametric, performance, manufacturing consumables, tool-level sensor data, test floor data, logistical data, as well as custom data types. Exensio products are designed to enable real-time rapid diagnosis and understanding of key manufacturing and test metrics during both inline and end-of-line wafer processing, helping customers reduce product variability and cost simultaneously. By integrating silos of data and applying AI and ML, Exensio products resolve the limitation of local optimization and provide better foresight across the entire production process, reducing the time it takes to make critical decisions that can drive higher product yield, quality and reliability. Exensio products are available as either an on-premise license or SaaS and are offered in four main, separately-offered Exensio products targeting the needs of the customer's business model: Exensio IDM, Exensio Fabless, Exensio Foundry, and Exensio OSAT. Each of these products are comprised of two or more modules to provide specific capabilities to address a particular type of company's needs and requirements; however, there are common features, functionality, and purpose across some of the key modules as follows:
Manufacturing Analytics (formerly Exensio Yield) ' This module uses our proprietary database schema to store collected data in a common environment with a consistent view. For example, product engineers use it to identify and analyze production yield, performance, reliability and other issues. Elements of this module are designed to
handle very large and complex data sets that are commonplace in the semiconductor industry. To support the multi-dimensional product requirements of our customers, the powerful, interactive visualization and analysis capabilities in this product are highly flexible and user-configurable.
Process Control (formerly Exensio Control) ' This module provides failure detection and classification (or FDC) capabilities for monitoring, alarming, and control of manufacturing tool sets. These capabilities include proprietary data collection and analysis of tool sensor trace data and summary indicators designed to rapidly identify sources of process variations and manufacturing excursions. When used together with Manufacturing Analytics and related modules, the accretive data mining and correlation capabilities are designed to enable identification of tool level sources of yield loss and process variation and enable predictive and proactive optimization decisions for process control, process adjustments, PM scheduling, tool corrective actions, wafer dispatching, and wafer level and final test to impact end of line product yield, performance, and reliability.
Test Operations (formerly Exensio Test) ' This module provides comprehensive data collection and analysis capabilities for data generated during manufacturing test operations designed to optimize test operations management overall, including improving test productivity, performing part average test, supporting test floor operations, and implementing adaptive test. Test Operations is also designed to provide predictive insights based on proprietary analytics during test, assembly and packaging to maximize the efficiency of test operations, productivity improvements and yield reclamation.
Assembly Operations (formerly Exensio ALPS) ' This module provides the capability to link assembly and packaging data with other product lifecycle data, including fabrication and characterization data, across the product life cycle. Data sources could include manufacturing, wafer acceptance test, wafer sort, test and assembly, final test, and field use. The proprietary data linkage enabled by Assembly Operations is also designed to enable device manufacturers to maintain full traceability of their finished products back to the source wafer without the need for Electronic Chip IDs (or ECIDs). This capability is becoming an essential requirement for safety-critical market segments such as automotive and military-aerospace.
Design-for-Inspection (or DFI) System. Our DFI System is designed to enable customers to achieve non-contact, inline electrical characterization and more effective process control. This system also enables electrical characterization of customers' product chip layout structures, contactless measurement, and powerful data processing and analysis of relevant product patterns. The electrical measurements augment and enhance existing inline defect inspection and metrology methods. The DFI system leverages our production-proven design and analysis infrastructure. The primary software and hardware elements of the DFI system are as follows:
DFI On-Chip Instruments ' Our on-chip measurement instruments are developed using our proprietary FIRE' layout analysis software and are tuned to capture key features of our customers' product layouts. As part of the system offering, we generally provide design services to create these instruments. These DFI instruments are designed to be placed in test chips, scribe lines, or in product die, without any area penalty, and to exhibit specific electrical responses
eProbe' Non-Contact E-Beam Tool ' Our eProbe e-beam tools are designed to measure the electrical response of the DFI instruments and suitable product layout structures. As part of the system offering, we generally provide tool support services to customers to operate this tool. The second generation tool includes orders of magnitude advances in throughput and accuracy that now enable DFI on-chip instruments to be used for inline control for leading-edge semiconductor process nodes.
Exensio Characterization Software ' This software, which is also a part of our Exensio platform, is designed to analyze the billions of measurements collected using the eProbe tool. As part of the system offering, we generally provide analysis services to customers to perform this analysis and provide summary findings and recommendations.
Characterization Vehicle (CV) System. Our CV system is a combination of CV test chips, hardware to test such products, software to analyze the test results, and related services. This system is designed to accelerate the efficiency of yield learning by shortening the learning cycle, learning more per cycle, and reducing the number of silicon wafers required in manufacturing processes. This system includes physical IP in the form of test structures and DOEs that are tuned to our customers' product and/or process specifics, tester hardware, data analysis, and training. The primary software and hardware products included in the CV system are as follows:
CV Test Chips ' Our proprietary test chips are designed by our professional engineers using our proprietary FIRE' layout analysis software. These test chips are run through a customer's manufacturing process, with intentional process modifications, to provide unique, differentiated data to explore the effects of potential process improvements given natural manufacturing variations. Our custom-designed CV test chips are optimized for our test hardware and analysis software and include DOEs tuned to each customer's process. Types of CV test chips include:
Our full-reticle and shared-reticle CV test chips are designed to provide a fast learning cycle and are fully integrated with third-party failure analysis and inspection tools for a complete diagnosis to understand root causes. Our full-reticle CV test chips use a shortened process flow to provide a faster learning cycle for specific process modules:
Our Scribe CV test chip are inserted directly on customers' product wafers to collect data about critical layers.
Our DirectProbe' CV test chips are designed to enable ultra-fast yield learning for new product designs by allowing our clients to measure components of actual product layout.
Our VarScan' CV test chips are designed for front-end or through-silicon via (or TSV) application with a focus on high resolution resistance variation analysis for mass production.
pdFasTest' Electrical Tester ' Our proprietary test hardware is optimized to quickly test our CV test chips, enabling fast defect and parametric characterization of manufacturing processes. As part of the system offering, we provide test programs for each CV test chip that are tuned to the customer's process. This automated system provides parallel functional testing, thus minimizing the time required to perform millions of electrical measurements to test our CV test chips. We provide services to analyze the unique, differentiated data output of this tester using the Exensio Characterization software to provide actionable insights to our customers.
Exensio Characterization software ' This software, which is also a part of our Exensio platform, collects the data generated from our CV test products, generating models of the performance effects of process variations on these design building blocks. As part of the system offering, we also offer analysis services, if the customer elects not to do such analysis itself.
Cimetrix' Software Products. Our Cimetrix software products enable equipment manufacturers to provide industry standard interfaces on their products for efficient equipment communication, control, and collection of equipment data. There are numerous industry standards that have been established for equipment connectivity and control, including the SEMI defined SECS (SEMI Equipment Communication Standard), GEM (Generic Equipment Model), and PV2 (new photovoltaic equipment communication standard based on SECS/GEM) standards. By providing software products that fully support these industry standards, equipment manufacturers can implement robust, turnkey support for these connectivity and control standards without needing to invest engineering resources to develop their own interfaces to these standards. Factories that purchase manufacturing equipment enabled with Cimetrix-supported interfaces, benefit from consistent and robust implementations of industry standards, enabling faster and more efficient implementation of smart manufacturing initiatives that depend on the collection and analysis of manufacturing and product data. There are two separate Cimetrix product lines targeting the needs of factory equipment connectivity and control. The products are sold via perpetual licenses and runtime royalties.
Equipment Factory Connectivity ' Our products for equipment connectivity primarily include the following:
CIMConnect' is designed for general purpose equipment connectivity and enables production equipment in the semiconductor and electronics industries to communicate data to the factory's host computer through the SECS/GEM and PV2 standards. CIMConnect can also support other emerging communications standards for maximum flexibility. In addition, it supports multiple-host interfaces simultaneously, which allows customers to support legacy, custom, and GEM interfaces. CIMConnect is used in semiconductor wafer fabrication, semiconductor back-end (test, assembly, and packaging), PV, HB-LED, disk drive, flat panel displays, printed circuit boards and other electronics manufacturing.
CIM300' is a software development kit (or SDK) used by manufacturers of 300mm semiconductor equipment that is designed to enable quick implementation of the required 300mm SEMI standards, including E39, E40, E87, E90, E94, E116, E148, and E157. These SEMI standards allow for the full automation required in manufacturing 300mm wafers. The CIM300 SDK includes CIMConnect, TESTConnect, and SECSConnect.
CIMPortal' Plus is an SDK for equipment manufacturers that allows for quick implementation of the Interface A, also known as EDA (Equipment Data Acquisition), and other SEMI standards, including E120, E125, E132, E134, E138, E147, and E164. Interface A specifies a new port on equipment that provides detailed structured data that can be used for advanced process control, e-diagnostics, and other equipment engineering service applications. These software applications are becoming critical to the fabs as shorter ramp times are required.
Equipment Control ' Our primary equipment control product is the CIMControlFramework' software, which is based on the latest Microsoft.NET technology. It is designed to enable equipment manufacturers to meet the supervisory control, material handling, platform and process control, and factory automation requirements of the fabrication facilities or fabs. Developers can leverage framework components through configuration and extension or customize when unique requirements exist. CIMControlFramework, unlike one-off solutions, is supported and maintained with upgrades, improvements, and performance enhancements. With a data-driven architecture at the core of the framework, data generated at any point on the equipment is designed to be quickly and easily accessed by any other module or external application.
Company Address: 2858 De La Cruz Blvd. Santa Clara 95050 CA
Company Phone Number: 280-7900 Stock Exchange / Ticker: NASDAQ PDFS
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