International Test Conference - The Cornerstone of Test Week(TM) - Hosts 39th Conference in Santa Clara, California, October 28 - 30, 2008

WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- International Test Conference, the highlight of the annual Test Week(TM) activities and the leading forum for electronics test technology, promises to engage and stimulate attendees from the test and design community with its technical program and activities when the doors open at the 39th annual ITC. Test Week 2008 runs from October 26 - October 31 at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, California. ITC's Advance Program and online registration are available on its Web site at http://www.itctestweek.org/ .

ITC 2008 Abounds with Technical Offerings and Educational Opportunities

ITC, the cornerstone of the Test Week event, is known worldwide for the strength of its technical program, which attracts many top researchers and industry experts who choose ITC to present the results of their work. Offerings throughout the week incorporate a wide variety of technical activities targeted at test and design theoreticians and practitioners, including: formal paper sessions, tutorials, panel sessions, lecture series sessions, advanced industrial practices sessions, a poster session, workshops, commercial exhibits and a host of professional fringe meetings. Taken together, these activities provide a week-long educational experience that will benefit people new to testing and experts.

This year, the International Test Conference technical program together with other Test Week 2008 events will focus on breakthrough ideas to address the challenges of providing high-quality, cost-effective tests for IC, boards and systems. The program will focus on the latest advances in such hot topics as design for manufacturability, power-aware test, recent advances in delay test, logic diagnosis, silicon debug, and high-quality test methods. Learn more about what's going on in traditional topics such as analog, mixed-signal, RF, microprocessor test and DFT -- as well as defects, memory, ATE and board test.

The renowned technical program contains 35 paper sessions and is supplemented with a lecture series and advanced industrial practices sessions. This year ITC features sessions on high-speed interface testing, board testing, automotive test, practical test engineering, and a special joint session with the AUTOTESTCON conference on system test.

ITC will also continue its tradition of presenting thought-provoking panels exploring current issues challenging the test practitioner. This year's panels begin on Monday, October 27 in the afternoon with a special panel titled Power-aware DFT -- Do We Really Need It?, and continues on Wednesday, October 29 with five additional panels on topics including analog test technology, data compression as a future-proof solution, debugging war stories, benefits and economics of yield learning, and a showdown between universities on up-to-date test research.

What's New at ITC 2008

New for 2008 are 'embedded tutorials' that will be conducted during the technical program and offered free of charge to all registered ITC attendees. Robert Daasch of ICDT Laboratory will present an introduction to statistics and their uses in semiconductor test, specifically, outlier screening. The other, presented by Gordon Roberts of McGill University, will describe the basics of mixed-signal production test.

Also new at ITC 2008 is the long-awaited return of the classic poster session. The poster session promotes interaction between the attendee and presenter and provides an opportunity for late-breaking results to be presented and receive feedback. The poster session will be held during the post-panel party on Wednesday, October 29.

A Dynamic Plenary Session Opens the Conference

The formal opening of the conference begins with the plenary session and a keynote address by Mike Lydon, Cisco's Vice President, Technology and Quality, Global Supply Chain Management, titled Managing Test in the End-to-End, Mega Supply Chain. Mike will discuss how today's "connected" environment has created significant growth opportunities in the electronics industry.

ITC will again feature invited speakers after lunch on all three days of the conference. On day one, Jan Rabaey from UC Berkeley delivers the invited address, Computing at the Crossroads (and What Does it Mean to Verification and Test?), while on day two, Bob Pease of National Semiconductor will host an interactive conversation on Having FUN with Analog Test. On Thursday, October 30, Jeff Rearick of AMD, will present, This is a Test: How to Tell if DFT and Test are Adding Value to Your Company.

Companies Feature New Products at ITC

As always, the exhibition forms a major part of ITC. Concurrent with the technical program, an exhibit floor will feature the newest equipment, software and services from all over the world for solving testing problems. Owing to its ongoing success, the University Booth on the exhibit floor will again offer an opportunity for the university community to demonstrate device/board/system testing research in areas including design verification, test, diagnosis and failure analysis.

A Strong Start and Finish for Test Week

ITC Test Week kicks off with 17 one-day tutorials presented by the IEEE Computer Society's Test Technology Technical Council (TTTC) on the two days prior to the conference technical program, October 26 and 27. They are geared for entry-level attendees as well as those wishing to expand their knowledge in a particular area, and cover such topics as high-speed interface testing, design-for-manufacturing, silicon debug and diagnosis, statistical screening, delay test, scan compression, analog, mixed-signal and RF test, memory test, IEEE Std. 1500, system-in-package test, and wafer-probe.

Closing out Test Week are three workshops to choose from on design for reliability and variability, defect- and data-driven testing, and ATE Vision 2020. These workshops provide in-depth and up-to-the-minute views of work in these important test areas.

About ITC

ITC is sponsored by the Test Technology Council of the IEEE Computer Society and by the Philadelphia Section of the IEEE. From its beginnings as an informal gathering of engineers in 1970 at Cherry Hill, New Jersey, ITC has grown into the Test Week event, with more than a hundred papers, panels, an exhibition, tutorials, workshops, lecture series sessions, a poster session, case studies and important keynote and invited speeches.

ITC is known for a tradition of spirited debates over test issues that continue during breaks and social gatherings. A multitude of companies choose ITC to demonstrate major new test products and services in the concurrent exhibition.

Celebrating its 39th conference year, ITC, the cornerstone of the Test Week activities, will take place at the Santa Clara Convention Center from October 28 - 30. Test Week runs October 26 - 31. The Advance Program and registration information are available on-line at http://www.itctestweek.org/ or from the ITC office by telephone at +1 202.973.8665.

  ITC gratefully acknowledges its sponsors and corporate supporters:

  International Test Conference 2008 Sponsors and Supporters

  Sponsors:                     IEEE and the IEEE Computer Society

  Diamond Level Supporter:      Optimal Test

  Platinum Level Supporters:    Advantest

                                Mentor Graphics

  Gold Level Supporters:        HILEVEL Technology, Inc.

                                Test Advantage

                                TSSI

                                Verigy

  Silver Level Supporter:       Credence

CONTACT: Amy Gold, ITC Marketing Chair, +1-212-850-6670, a.gold@advantest.com

Web site: http://www.itctestweek.org/

SOURCE International Test Conference